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Tl DiVlL'S PULPIT: 



ASTRO-THEOLOGICAl SERMOM 



REV. ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., ; 

n 1 

AUTHOR OF THE " DIEGESIS," " SYNTAGMA," &0., ; 



SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, 



ASTEONOMICAL INTRODUCTION. 



NEW YORK t 
PUBLISHED BY CALVIN BLANCHARD, 

76, NASSAU STREET. 

1857. 









%' 



CONTENTS. 



Life of Taylor v 

Introduction. . . - ix 

The Star of Bethlehem: (Parti.) p 

The Star of Bethlehem : (Part ii.) ..... 17 

The Star of Bethlehem (Part iii.) 33 

John the Baptist. 49 

Kaising the Devil ! (Part i.) 65 

Of Eaising the Devil! (Part II.) 81 

The Temple: 97 

The Unjust Judge : . 113 

Virgo Paritura : 129 

Saint Peter : .......... 145 

Judas Iscariot Vindicated. . 161 

Saint Thomas : 177 

Saint James and Saint John, the Sons of Thunder : . . 193 

The Crucifixion of Christ 209 

The Cup of Salvation 223 

Lecture on Free Masonry. (Part i.) 238 

Lecture on Free Masonry. (Part ii.) 250 

Lecture on Free Masonry. (Part in.) 263 

Lecture on Free Masonry. (Part iv.) 276 

The Holy Ghost : 288 

Saint Philip : 303 

Saint Matthew : . 317 

The Redeemer : 331 



INTRODUCTION, 

riTH EXPLANATION OF ENGRAVING, &C 



This introduction is a key to the astronomical allusions 
and various mysteries in the Bible, referred to in " The 
DeviPs Pulpit,^^ by the Rev. Robert Taylor, B. A., and 
to similar allusions in Volney, Dupuis, &c. 

The earliest worship was that of^Deity as exhibited in 
nature, and the study of religion was the study of nature, 
and the priests natural philosophers, and hence astrono- 
mers, at first, honest; but having obtained power or influ- 
ence by knowledge, the people gave them credit not only 
for what they did know, but also for what they presumed 
they knew : and because they could foretell eclipses by 
calculations based on laborious observations and apparent 
astronomy, they also presumed that priests could foretell 
other events, and hence urged on the astronomical priests 
the character also of astrologers. The priests finding 
such professions a profitable source of revenue, drove 
these studies to extremity, and made 'mystery where none 
existed, as this enhanced the priestly character in the con- 
ception of the people. 

To preserve this influence and power, the profession or 
trade of the priest was made difficult. The Druids, or 
Priests of Apollo, (at first missionaries from India, of the 
order of Buddha,) had no books, taught the aspirants to 
the priesthood by memory only ; and gradually initiated 
them into the mysteries, making all manner of austerities 
necessary qualifications, so that none among the Druids 
of Britain, Gaul, Spain, and toward the East, were of an 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

inferior character; all, hy their training, were superior 
men in mind and body, fit to command, and hke other 
men in power turned that to their own aggrandizement; 
so that, except the sovereignity, this order filled every 
station of profit and honor ; their itinerant poets directed 
the common people, stirred them up to war or lulled them 
in superstition, while others directed the education of the 
wealthy, and served the oflices of priests, lawyers, physi- 
cians, teachers and statesmen, and all banded in a secret 
order. 

Such as were the Druids in the West, were also the 
Magi of Persia and the Priests of Hindoostan and Egypt ; 
one system, in substance, governed them all ; and the 
worshippers of Fire in Persia, of the Sun and Moon in 
India and Egypt w^ere substantially the same ; each wor- 
shipped God under the symbol of Fire, or the Sun, as the 
most prominent object in Nature, effecting being, life, an- 
imal and vegetable, and performing the offices of a good 
and wise Deity. The blessings of Nature w^ere personi- 
fied, and its qualities, the same as those of Deity, taught 
by every symbol which Nature affords or priests could 
imagine. The heavens and stars were divided into hosts, 
with all imaginable qualities, in proportion as facts were 
really unknown, and natural phenomena were exhibited 
in fable ; a conjunction of the Moon or Planets was 
called a marriage, and the Sun assumed every garb ac- 
cording to the season and constellation in which it w^as ; 
a raging lion in midsummer when the Sun was in Leo, 
an ox in spring w^hen the Sun was in Torus, and in later 
times " The Lamb of God" when the Sun took the cross 
and passed the equator in Aries the ram ; a noxious scor- 
pion in autumn when the Sun is in that sign descending 
below the equator and becoming the harbinger of winter 
and desolation; and the Sun became a man in the sign 
Aquarius, or watery season, and in that character was so 
worshipped ; and these four signs form the celebrated 
Cherubim which ornamented the columns equally of the 
Jewish and Heathen temples, and have come down to 



INTRODUCTION. V 

our times, and associated with Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John ; for one of these signs are attributed to each, and 
are thus painted on the windows of the Cathedral (Trinity 
Church) Broadway, New York, built in imitation of an 
old European church, who copied it from a Roman church, 
who copied it from a Heathen temple, thus showing the 
connexion of Christianity with the ancient worship, and 
throwing some doubt on the reality even of the existence 
in flesh and blood of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, for 
here on the window^s of Trinity are they represented as 
emblems of the seasons, and of the seasons too as they 
were five thousand years ago. 

To make these subjects plain w^e have introduced a cut, 
Vale's globe and sphere would be better, the ancients had 
something of the kind, so as to follow their pursuits in 
their studies as well as in their temples or astronomical 
towers. 

The engraving must be a substitute. (See page i^.) 

The two parts of this engraving represent the two 
halves of the heavens ; these placed back to back and 
inflated would represent the heavens or celestial globe. 
Imagine the Earth in the middle, the north and south 
poles of which corresponding in position to the north and 
south poles of the heavens, and the equator of the Earth 
exactly under the equator marked W. E. in the heavens: 
then the curved hne with figures and signs on it will re- 
present the })assage of the Sun, both as it was two thou- 
sand five hundred years ago, and as it is now. This line 
is called the ecliptic. 

Observe to the left hand where the Sun crosses the 
equator, or is just over the equator of the Earth, it is in 
that part of the heavens marked W., and this is known 
in fact by the perpendicular rays of the Sun striking on 
the equator of the Earth, and which time we call >pring: 
that is, we always call it spring when the Sun after win- 
ter reaches the equator ; and this point, happen where 
and when it will, we call the first point of Aries (the ram) 
and mark it on the ecliptic with a ram's horn ('>^), and 

1* 



Vi. INTRODUCTION. 

every thirty degrees we call a sign, twelve of which make 
the whole circle or 360 degrees, the Sun's apparent mo- 
tion is through these signs or constellations, beginning in 
the spring with Aries {^) the ram, Torus ( ^) the bull, 
Gemini (n) the twins, Cancer (25) the crab, Leo (fl) the 
lion, Vergo (^) the virgin. Libra (=^) the balance, Scor- 
pio (^) the scorpion, Sagetarius (t) the archer, Capri- 
cornius (V5') the goat, Aquarius (occ) the water carrier, 
Pices (X) the fishes. 

The Sun during the year passes through these signs, 
rising above the equator in spring, and reaching the 
greatest declination, or distance from the equator to the 
north, at midsummer or in three months; and inclin- 
ing towards the equator at autumn, which it crosses at 
that time, and then passing our winter months south of 
the equator ; and it is this declination of the Sun which 
gives our seasons, for when the Sun is north of the equator 
in the heavens, it shines to the north of the equator on 
the earth, and gives summer to that part and winter to 
the south, and vice versa. 

Now observe the cut, where the sign ^ aries is, there 
is the fish, and where the sign torus ^ is, there is the ram, 
and where the sign n gemini is, there is the bull, &e. 
The reason is this, the Sun does not cross the equator 
year after year in the same part of the heavens, but gra- 
dually recedes ; \0^ before it has completed the entire 
circuit it is found on the equator, and that is our spring, 
and that the point in the ecliptic which we call the first 
point in Aries, and to this point we give the mark of the 
ram's Jiorn let it be where it will : now two thousand 
five hundred years ago this point was in the constellation 
called Aries, or where we have marked the ram's head, 
and it is now^ in the fishes, that is the equinoctial point has 
receded more than an entire sign during this period, and 
it is now receding in the same ratio, so that in twenty- 
five thousand years this point will go backwards the 
whole circle, and the first point of Aries will again be in 
the ram ; and there is strong evidences that more than 



INTRODUCTION, Vll. 

one such periods have elapsed since time, or the earth 
was. This retrogression of the equinoctial points, is call- 
ed the Precession of the Equinoxes, because this retrograde 
motion of this crossing point brings on the spring earlier 
than it apparently ought to be. HT" The effect is the 
apparent forward motion of the whole constellations or 
stars from west to east, in the direction of the ecliptic, 
and about the poles of the ecliptic, m^irked in the cut with 
two dots, thus • one north the other south. This appa- 
rent motion of the stars about the poles of the echptic 
affect the relative situation of the stars, not with each 
other, but in relation to the equator and poles of the 
heavens ; for these poles or the north star will make a 
revolution about the pole of the ecliptic ; and the constel- 
lation Ram (see cut) which was on the equator, is now 
north of it ; and as this constellation takes the course of 
the ecliptic, it is evident that four thousand years ago it 
was south of the equator, and then the Bull was on the 
equator, and the Sun in that sign began the year — the 
evident origin of the worship of the Bull or Apis among 
the Egyptians, and of the respect to the Cow among the 
Hindoos ; it was the period when these signs, the Bull, 
the Lion, the Scorpion, (changed to the Eagle) and the 
Man, marked the principal divisions of the year, and 
were kept with religious rites by the ancients ; portions 
of which were incorporated with Judism, and afterwards 
with Christianity, and hence we find them associated in 
Trinity Church with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as 
representatives of the seasons. 

Now in reading Taylor's discourses you will better un- 
derstand a number of references ; for in his first and se- 
cond discourse, now re-published, he speaks of nearly 
all these signs, and so in others ; and in the first discourse 
makes considerable reference to Sagetarius, the archei, 
which should be represented half man and half horse ; in 
the figure in the cut the horse part is left out, for con- 
tractions are used in the sigris, but the entire Ram, BulK 
&0., are frequently seen. 



Vm. INTRODtrCTION. 

These contractions beautifully explain Egyptian hiero- 
glyphics and writing by symbols. 

Besides these constellations, called the signs of the 
zodiac, all the prominent stars were grouped by the an- 
cients making 48 constellations, and these all had a the- 
ological character, frequently changeable with the position 
of the Sun, for all would be either rising, setting, culmi- 
nating, (coming to the meridian with the Sun,) advancing 
or receding from that luminary, for the Sun being always 
in apparent motion, afforded all these varieties, and the 
apparent motions of the heavenly bodies were well known 
to the ancients, including the doctrine of eclipses, which 
requires no other know^ledge for their solution. The an- 
cients too at a very early period became acquainted with 
the true system of astronomy, and this effected a gradual 
change in their religious notions ; and when satisfied that 
the descent of the Sun in the autumn was a natural and 
beneficial consequence to the world, the odious scorpion 
had to give place to the eagle, which by the ancients w^as 
seen on the eastern horizon with the Scorpion, when the 
Bull was on the western, the Lion in the zenith, and the 
Man or Aquarius, on the opposite or under meridian, the 
favorite position of the globe or sphere with the ancients, 
for these had such instruments, and with these all manner 
of fancy groups could be formed, and studied in the cham- 
ber as well as in the expanse of the heavens. 

Note. — We have recently finished a beautiful Celestial Globe in 
transparent sections, to be used with the (Vale's) Globe and Sphere ; 
the 48 old constellations are colored to be easily distioguised. On 
the Globe all the facts referred to in Volney, Dupuis, Taylor, and 
others are clearly seen. 



SKETCH 



OF THE 



LIFE OF THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR. 



This gentleman was born August 18th, 1784, at Ed- 
munton, near London, and educated as a surgeon under 
Sir Astley Cooper; but as he exhibited a strong religious 
feeling, and great powers of oratory, he was persuaded 
by his friend the Rev. Thomas Cotterell, to take holy 
orders in the Established Church of England, which he 
did by matriculating in St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and became a zealous evangehcal preacher, at first in 
London, and afterwards in Surrey. 

Mr. Taylor was religious but candid ; and a free en- 
quirer, a tradesman in Midhurst, by the loan of books 
and conversation, first awakened his skepticism, and as 
he was too honest to conceal the truth, he drew the at- 
tention of the Bishop of Chichester, who not only remon- 
strated with Mr. Taylor, but persecuted him by depriving 
him of his support and recommending retirement. Mr. 
Taylor made several efforts to be reconciled to the church, 
but was treated with great severity : till at length resist- 
ing the oppression, he joined some gentlemen in forming 
a Society of Universal Benevolence^ of which he became 
the lecturer, in a small theatre in Dublin ; from which 
he was driven by Protestant zeal. 

In 1824 he arrived in London, he lectured and debated 
in various places and established The Christian Evidence 



LIFE OF TAYLOR. XL 

Society, Some of these discourses were printed in The 
Lion^ published by Carlile, others form the volume known 
as The DeviPs Pulpit, a name given from the circumstance 
of the author having been dubbed the Devil's Chaplain by 
Mr. H. Hunt. In 1827 the Mayor of London, presumed to 
be instigated by others, had Mr. Taylor arrested for blas- 
phemy, selecting the matter from The DeviPs Pulpit: 
this was done in the meanest possible manner, the arrest 
being made so late on a Saturday night as to prevent 
bail being obtained, and thereby the man of power gain- 
ed the petty advantage of disappointing the public by 
preventing Mr. Taylor's lecture on Sunday. A persecu- 
tion was now organized ; Wright, a Bristol Quaker and 
banker, took this opportunity to press a debt, and threw 
the orator into prison. 

During the same year a second indictment was prefer- 
red, including several of Mr. Taylor's friends, but they 
were never brought to trial. 

On October 24th5 1827, Mr. Taylor was convicted on 
one of these indictments by an English Church and King 
jury, and sent to Oakham gaol for one year, with secu- 
rities for good behaviour for five years. In this gaol 
Mr. Taylor wrote his Diegesis and his Syntagma, this 
latter was a reply to the Rev. John Pye Smith, it fur- 
nishes the proofs of arguments used in debates at The 
Christian Evidence Society. Mr. Taylor also published 
a weekly letter in The Lion. 

On Mr. Taylor's release he formed an intimate acquain- 
tance with Mr. Carlile; he resumed his lectures, and with 
Mr. Carlile, made a tour, visiting the Universities, large 
towns and cities of England, and every where challeng- 
ing the clergy to meet them in argument. A few de- 
bates took place, but every where an excitement was 
created and the tourists were triumphant. 

On Mr. Taylor's return from this tour the Rotunda was 
opened with tremendous effect. A second prosecution 
followed, which terminated in Mr. Taylor's being sent to 
Horsemongers' Gaol, where his treatment was as crue! 



Xll. LIFE OF TAYLOR. 

as an English Government and faction durst make it 
Mr. Taylor, in a fit of desperation from ill-usage, having 
threatened the life of the gaoler, this fact was made use 
of even by the government for prolonging his imprison- 
ment. During his persecution the Society was partly 
broken up. Soon after his release a want of unanimity 
between him and Mr. Carlile injured his exertions, and 
his public career was terminated by a marriage with a 
lady of some property, with whom he retired to France, 
and there spent in tranquility the remainder of his days, 
and where he died a few years after at a good old age, 
leaving no manuscripts as far as is known. g. v.- r 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS»— Allan Cunningham. 

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM: 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFBIAES-ROAD, NOVEMBER 7, 1830. 



" Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we have seen his 
Star in the East, and are come to worship him,'' — Matthew ii. 2. 



Who are the inquirers ? The wise men of the East. Very 
well ! Show them in here, and we will show these wise men 
of the East this mighty King of the Jews — the new-born om- 
nipotence — the little baby-God. 

"Hark! the herald angels sing, 
Glory to the new-born King, 
Peace on earth and Mercy mild, 
God and sinners reconciled ; 
Joyful all ye nations, rise, 
Join the triumph of the skies ; 
With the angelic host proclaim, 
Christ is born in Bethlehem.'* 

And these wise men were come from the Easi to worship 
liim. I only beg leave to think I see them at it. I only ask 



2 THE devil's pulpit. 

to be permitted to imagine that such a scene really occurred, 
and to imagine what your impressions, as well as mine, would 
have been, had we been spectators of it. If such a scene 
really occurred on earth, like every other real occurrence, it 
must admit of being imagined to have occurred. And even 
they who require us to surrender our reason, should at least 
leave us the exercise of our' imagination : so that we may have 
some part of our minds left, and not be out of our minds — 
out-and-out. For 'tis rather riding us hard, of our Christian 
divines, to require us to believe that, a^ true, which they them- 
selves do not only not know to be true, but dare not trust them- 
selves, or anybody else, so much as to imagine to be true. 
The mind's excursive faculty is found to be as great a rebel . 
against faith, as its reason. To be a Christian indeed, you 
must lay aside the use of your minds altogether. For the facts 
of the gospel are of such a mysterious nature, that they will 
not merely not bear to be reasoned on, but they will not bear to 
be thought on. You may believe that it is true — you may make 
believe that it is true — you may say that it is true — you may 
swear that it is true : but the moment you begin to think that 
it is true, you will find yourself within half an inch of think- 
ing that it is false. So that there is really no other way of be- 
lieving the gospel, than that in which the archbishop of Dublin 
believes the Thirty-nine Articles — that is, taking them in the 
lump — and so believing, without thinking. The sanctity, the 
seriousness, the charm, are gone, the moment you begin to let 
in daylight on the gospel theatre, by imagining that its person- 
ages had a real existence, and its incidents an historical occur- 
rence. Who are these wise men, come from the East, to say 
their prayers to a little squalling God-a-mighty, sucking his 
thumb as fast as he could suck ? 

" And when they were come into the housBy they saw the 
yovng child with Mary, his mammal But it does not say 
what Mary, his mamma, was doing to the young child. But 
it says that the wise men fell down ; but then, again, it does 
not say what it was that knocked them down ; only, it imme- 



THE devil's pulpit. 3 

diately informs us that they brought out some frankincense, 
which could be of no other use than to sweeten the apartment 
— the stable, I should say : for we are never to forget that 
our blessed Savior was born in a stable — as the angels told 
the shepherds — 

"The heavenly babe you there shall find. 
To human view displayed, 
All meanly wrapped in dirty rags, 
And in a manger laid." 

Indeed, one would be utterly at a loss to guess in what the 
wisdom of the wise men consisted, unless it had been that they 
had anticipated that the heavenly babe might have such a heav- 
enly smell about him as would have rendered a little frank- 
incense, or aromatic vinegar, very refreshing. And they wov 
shipped him — the wise men worshipped him. What sort of 
worship wise men would be likely to pay to a new-born child, 
might be easier guessed at than told — only it was not very 
wise 01 them to open their treasures, and present unto him gifts, 
gold, Irankincense, and myrrh, when a ha'p'orth of lolipop, and 
some bull's-eyes and sugar-plums, would have suited his Royal 
Highness so much better, and have been quite sufficient to have 
insured their own everlasting salvation : but, somehow or other, 
the wise men have always contrived it that salvation should 
never be cheap ; and however little of the profit may go to 
God (God help him !), his vicegerents and ministers take pretty 
good care that, if -you want to go worshipping, you must open 
your treasures. 

*' And being warned of God, in a dream, that they should 
not return unto Herod, they departed into their own country 
another way.'*'' However these wise men found their way to 
Bethlehem, it is admitted that they dreamed their way back 
again. But sure, they could never have dreamed that the 
King of the Jews, who ought to have been born in a palace, 
should be so superfluous in his humility, as to suffer himself 
to be born in a stable ; and thus, while he was taking upon 



4 THE devil's pitlpit. 

himself the nature of man, rendering it very doubtful whether 
he v^as not, at the same time, going to take on himself the 
nature of a horse ? For those good Christians, who believe 
that our blessed Savior was both God and man, can have no 
right to quarrel with me for carrying my faith a little bit fur- 
ther than theirs, and believing, as I most sincerely do, that he 
was both man and horse. To which most true faith I am led, 
not merely by the most natural suspicion attaching to the cir- 
cumstance of his having been born in a stable — as where else 
should a horse be born ? But not to make any sort of play on 
words, or to strain any phrase whatever from its obvious sense, 
which I would not for the world — not to build on the certainty 
of the fact that he had no human father — that the angel spoke 
of him to the mare, or Mary his mother, not as the holy babe 
or holy child, but as the holy thing that should be born of her: 
I appeal to the whole angelic chorus^ to the multitude of the 
heavenly host who appeared to the shepherds keeping watch 
over their flock by night, in ratification of that express defini- 
tion, than which no words can be more express : " Unto you is 
horn, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ 
the Lord j and this shall he a sign.^^ 

Now the key of the whole mystery lies in that single phrase 
(Kdi TSTo vjuv TO llr]ij.€iov), and " this to you shall be the sign :" 
that is, this Savior, which is Christ the Lord, shall be a sign. 
The false punctuation of our English Testaments, contrived as 
much as possible to lead the people into error, and keep them 
in it, would make it seem that the sign had meant no more 
than a signal or token that the angel's testimony was correct; 
and that that token was, that they should find a babe wrapped 
in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger, than which a dog 
in the manger might have known better. For not so ordinary 
and indifi*erent a circumstance as a frail young woman running 
away from her home (as she might have reason enough to do), 
and being brought to bed in the best lodging that could be hired 
for nothing, was the sign (which would have been a sign of 
nothing else than that the young woman had not been so pru- 



THE devil's pulpit. 5 

dent as she ought to have been) ; but Christ himself, the Savior, 
which is Christ the Lord, was the sign, and that sign was to be 
seen in the city of David. 

Now, there are but twelve signs in the city of David ; and if, 
'among them, you will look for the sign of the month of No- 
vember, the season upon which we are now entering, you will 
find that that sign actually is Sagittarius, with his bow and ar- 
row — uniting the two natures in his own person : that is, not 
the two natures of God and man, but the two natures of man 
and horse — being down to the loins a human form, but all the 
rest a horse. So that the creed of St. Athanasius ought to have 
run, that, as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so man 
and horse is one Christ, Perfect man arid perfect horse, of a 
reasonable soul and human flesh, subsisting, who, for us men 
and for our salvation, came down from heaven (and it is pre- 
cisely when the sun is coming down from heaven that he ap- 
pears in the sign of the man and the horse), and was born in a 
stable ; which gives us the true and astronomical explication, 
where I defy the wit of man to give any other explication, of 
that prophecy of Simeon in the second of Luke. Behold this 
(Child) ! Child, says our fraudulent English translation ; but 
the devil a word about a child is there in the original, or any- 
thing half so childish. But it is iSs stos Ksirai : Behold this, that 
is, this thing-a-me-bob, this half man and half horse, this Sagit- 
tarius, IS set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel ; and 
for a sign which shall be spoken against, sts arjixtiov avriXEyoiisvov ; 
that is, he shall be one of the adverse signs — one of the signs 
of the winter-months, the sign of the month November, when 
many in Israel — that is, the many stars (that make up this 
constellation) sink below the horizon, and do not rise again nor 
appear in the holy city, till after his resurrection, that is, after 
the sun, having passed through the humiliation of his wintry 
state, in November, December, January, and February, appears 
as the Lamb of God crossing the line of the equator in March, 
where, having overcome the sharpness of death, he opens the 



6 THE DEVIL ^S PULPIT. 

kingdom of heaven to all believers ; thus giving us the mean- 
ing again, where no other meaning can be imagined, of those 
words of St. Matthew, that " the earth did quake, and the rocks 
rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the 
saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his 
resurrection, and went into the Holy City, and appeared unto 
many. 

The 01 a\ioi, the saints, in the proper significancy of that 
word, never having meant any persons that ever existed upon 
earth, but referring only to the stars of heaven, or the holy ones 
of God, as the holy city, and the city of David, and the city 
of our God, and the Jerusalem, in which all these fallings 
and risings again, these crucifixions, resurrections, and ascen- 
sions (than which no language of astronomy could possibly be 
more astronomical), do all of them annually occur, was no Je- 
rusalem, no city, no piace on earth, but Jerusalem which is 
above. 

As the apostle expressly admonishes us m these words to the 
Colossians : " Set your affections on things above, not on things 
on earth ;" that is, set your understanding and apprehension on 
the great principles of astronomical science, and do not be so 
stupid as to suppose that Jesus Christ and his apostles were 
persons that ever existed upon earth. And as, again, to the 
Philippians, chap, iii., v. 20 : Hncov yap to iro'XiTsvixa ev ypavois — for 
our conversation is in the heavens ; that is, most explicitly, this 
whole affair of which we speak and preach, and which is 
called gospel, has no reference at all to any persons that ever 
existed, or events that ever occurred upon' earth : but it is as- 
tronomical ; it is all to be seen, and is all exhibited in the visi- 
ble heavens — as the great Albertus has expressly said : "All 
the mysteries of the incarnation of our Savior Christ, and all 
the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to 
his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellation, and are 
figured in the stars." 

And there, in that heavenly Jerusalem, and only there, are 



THE devil's pulpit. 7 

Bethlehem — the house of bread — that is, the tent of the Vir- 
gin of August, in which Christ is conceived : and all the Beth- 
saidas, Bethanies, Beth-shemeshes, and Bethels, in which every- 
one of the imagined events of your gospel, not excepting one, 
have their astronomical significancy ; and which, escaping the 
discernment of vulgar and uncurious ignorance, have been stu- 
pidly mistaken for historical facts : just as a fool, who has but 
seen the diagrams and delineations in the elements of Euclid, 
will make himself dead sure that all the mathematics in the 
world could have consisted in nothing more than in making 
hobscotches, and catgallowses, and scratchcradles, to play at 
tit-tat-toe with. 

While our Christian clergy of the present day, either the 
most ignorant or the most deceitful of the whole human race, 
have played into this fool's game, have pandered to the pas- 
sions of barbarous ignorance, and found that the swinish mul- 
titude would be quite as well satisfied with the shells and 
husks of science, as the kernel ; and so the tale was but bloody 
enough, and monstrous enough, impossible to have happened, 
and inconceivable to be conceived, they would never endanger 
the power of the clergy by seeking to be wise above what is 
written. 

Thus the clergy have laid the bars of a fraudulently-pre- 
tended historical evidence across the path of knowledge ; 
and I wish those had been the only bars that they had 
laid. But here, sirs, minds will be of use to you : here, I 
ask you not, as newborn babes, to desire the sincere milk 
of the word, but I call upon you, as full-grown men, to hold 
me to the debt of supplying you with the solid intellec- 
tual feast of the meaning ; in which I ask no sensible man's 
assent from his favor, but will challenge it from his convic- 
tion. 

And not a man who hath the intellectual cravings of a man, 
but shall rise from this feast, to tread the fetters of supersti- 
tion and ignorance under his feet, and only to wonder how 



8 THE devil's pulpit. 

he could have beun held in them so long; and to say with 
me — 

" How charming is divine philosophy, 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo^s lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns.'' 

I have explained to you how the Sun, who is the Jesus 
Christ, and the only Jesus Christ that ever existed, as he 
passes respectively into each one of the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac, assumes the character of that particular sign, and is 
assimilated and entirely identified with it. So that while he 
is still one, and the selfsame Supreme and only God, we ^nd 
him continually spoken of under the most opposite and con- 
tradictory characteristics and attributes. He is even some- 
times spoken of as his own enemy, and is as often the destroyer 
as the savior of the world : sometimes loving the world, then 
hating the world, then reconciling the world unto himself: 
thus borrowing continually his moral character in the gospel- 
fable, from his physical affinities in the Zodiac. He is the 
Lamb of God in March : he is the Lion of the tribe of J"dah 
in July : while he is the sign that shall he spoken against ; 
that is, the sign of Sagittarius, the half-man and half-horse iu 
the gloomy month of November, the sign which is indeed 
spoken against — " the gloomy month of November, when the 
people of England hang and drown themselves." And thus, 
through the whole twelve signs of the Zodiac, which I have 
caused to be sketched on the dome of the minor theatre, for 
the purpose of assisting these illustrations ; as, should I live 
to see the day, when my fortune shall enable me to exhibit 
the complete theological eidouranion which I meditate, no: 
an iota, not one single genuine passage of your Old or New 
Testament will I leave unexemplified, undemonstrated, or un 
traced to its origination in that occult astronomy, which, under 
the allegorical veil of what was called sacred history, has 



THE devil's pulpit. 9 

for ages subjugated insulted reason to the power of priest- 
craft : and lapsing, as unhappily it did, out of the manage" 
ment of those who knew its meaning, into the ruffian hands 
of the Goths and Vandals, who knew nothing about it, has 
muddled the little share of intellect which nature has given 
them, and maddened them into Christians. It is no longer 
that doubt is possible, or that conviction can be withheld, 
when the mind, possessing but the healthy faculties of the 
mind, shall see what here we are competent to show, that 
all the anomalies, contradictions, and absurdities of the gospel, 
by which a thousand generations of wrangling idiots have 
been led by the nose by sanctified knaves into a thousand 
different sects, are but the fallen ruins of a once-glorious 
temple, in which our art can yet trace out the positions and re- 
lations of every part — can mortice the beam into the joist, 
can dovetail every angle, and replace every frieze and cornice 
upon the entablature of its proper shaft — till the whole shall 
present to you the perfect symmetry of the first citadel of sci-? 
ence. 

For indeed — and in a sense which Christian stupidity 
never stumbled on — say we, ** In Jewry is God known, his name 
is great in Israel, At Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwel* 
ling in Sion. There brake he the arrows of the bow, the 
shield, the sword, and the battled In the Old Jewry, ^ in 
Cheapside, suppose ye ? Yes, quite as probably there as in 
any Jewry upon earth. But look to the Jewry of the Zodiac, 
where the houses of the sun, which constitute that heavenly 
city, are — and there will you see the arrows of the bow in the 
hand of Sagittarius — the horse and his rider y 'w\\\c\i the sun 
is said to break and conquer, by suffering and passing through 
that sign which is so much spoken against, that through death 
he might overcome him, which had the power of death — that 
is, the devil — the diabolus — the adverse sign, Sagittarius, of 
which victory Miriam sang — when the sun, rising victorious 

* The sermons were delivered in this locality. — Ed. 



10 THE devil's pulpit. 

in the summer months, throws this constellation below the 
horizon, so that he seems to be drowned. " Sing ye to the 
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his 
rider hath he thrown into the sea^ While the psalmist, speak- 
ing of the same Lord (that is, the sun), when about to enter 
this sign of the half-man and half-horse — and therefore recon- 
ciling it unto himself, tells us (in the one hundred and forty- 
seventh Psalm) that " The Lord delighteth not in any nian^s 
legs, neither hath he pleasure in the strength of a horse ;" 
which is as innocent of meaning as the gospel itself, if you will 
be so innocent as to swallow it as gospel — but clear, harmo- 
nious, beautiful, and sublime, in its astronomical reference to 
the sun in Sagittarius, who, you will observe, is a man only 
from his head to his hips ; so that he has no man's legs to 
delight in, while all the rest of him is a horse — in whose 
strength he has no pleasure , the sports of hunting making 
but little amends to the sun for his humiliation in the short 
and gloomy days of November. So that our blessed Sa- 
vior, in becoming what the blessed Simeon calls him, " the 
sign that was spoken against^^ — that is, the ninth of the 
twelve signs, had very strong signs of being a horse — which 
gave reason enough for the wise men, supposing them only 
to be wise enough to understand his astronomical charac- 
teristics, when they were inquiring where Christ should be 
born, to make a pretty good guess that he would be born in a 
stable. 

And why should the Christian, who has no hesitation in 
calling his blessed Savior a lamb, think it profane in us, to 
call him a horse. Or, if he only became a lamb, that he 
might bear the sins of the whole world, it only shows 
that the sins of the whole world could not have been very 
heavy. But so intolerant, so tyrannical, overbearing, and 
oppressive, has the Christian temper in all ages been, that 
while they represent their Savior in any w^ay they please 
themselves, they raise the cry of profaneness, levity, and 
ridicule, against the slightest variation of the follies which 



THE devil's pulpit. 11 

their own imaginations have consecrated. You ' may look 
unto Jesus as a bleeding lamb, but you must not look on 
him as a stuck-pig ; you may address the Holy Ghost as a 
dove, but you may not call him a torn-tit. So the blessed 
Saint Augustin, being an orthodox Christian father, the orna- 
ment of the age in which he lived, and the highest authority 
to us, of what the most pure and primitive Christianity was, 
has left us a form of soliloquy, addressed to our blessed 
Savior, in which he shows that our blessed Savior was a 
hlachbeetle, or cockchafer, or May-hug, that is, one of those 
little insects which Christian children are very properly in- 
structed to stick upon a pin and thread to set them buzzing, 
that the amiable innocents might learn betimes to think of 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified. So the learned father Atha- 
nasius.Kircherius assures us, that " by the May-hug was sig- 
nified the only begotten Son of God, by whom all things 
were made, and without whom was not anything made that 
was made." The words of St. Augustin are : *' Bonus ille 
scarabaeus mens, non ea tantum de causa, quod unigenitus, 
quod ipsemet sui auctor, mortalium speciem indurerit, sed 
quod in hac faece nostra, sese volutaverit, et ex ipsa, nasci 
homo voluerit. He [that is Jesus Christ] was my good 
cockchafer ; not merely because, like a cockchafer, he was 
the only begotten, because he created himself, and put on a 
species of mortals, but because he rolled himself, in human 

excre " (Casalius de Veter. -^gyp. Ritibus, p. 35.) It 

is too execrable for me to translate ; but God-a'-mighty knows 
that, however pure in heart these saints might have been, 
they were men of the nastiest ideas that ever made civi- 
lized life ashamed of them. The learned Casalius, in quoting 
so solemn a declaration of so great a saint, that "Jesus Christ 
was a cockchafer, or May-hug,^^ proves that the saint must 
have been right, from those words of "God himself, in the 22d 
Psalm, where he expressly says of himself—" as for me, I am 
a worm and not a man.^^ — Eyw ^e eiin E/cwXr?^ Kai bk avOpoiiro^, where 
the Hebrew word, which has been translated, a worm, as 



12 THE devil's pulpit. 

the great Casalius thinks, should have been translated a cock* 
chafer. 

But I am satisfied with the correctness of the received render- 
ing ; and do (God be praised for so much grace) rest in most 
assured conviction, that our blessed Savior, in that high and 
sublime sense of the science of divinity, of which our divines 
of the present day are so egregiously ignorant, really was a 
worm and not a man — as I can prove, beyond all possibility 
of doubt, that no such man ever existed. But, sprinkle cool 
patience on your warm feelings, and I will make this matter 
possess itself of your conviction, with ** confirmation strong as 
proof of holy writ." That our blessed Savior, the only true 
God, really was a worm ; you have not alone his own word, 
in that most positive declaration of himself, than* which no 
words could be more positive — As for me I am a worm, and 
not a man — but you have the whole analogy of faith, and all 
the harmonious coincidences of this sacred science, to illus- 
trate and evince. For observe ye, our blessed Savior 
achieved his mightiest conquest in the grave — and 'tis in 
the grave, that the worm conquers everybody. Nobody was 
ever conqueror in that field, but the worm. To the chal- 
lenge, <* grave, where is thy victory .^" the only answer is, 
the victory is the worm's. To the worm alone can it be truly 
said, " thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.' 
The debt of gratitude, however ungrateful, must at last be 
paid ; and as they say our blessed Savior died for us, we 
must die for him. And as he gave us his flesh to eat, we 
must return the compliment, and give him ours. We must 
gQ to the Lord's Supper, as it is very accurately called the 
last supper, where we shall not be shown up as the company, 
but served up as the dishes : where we shall be " at supper, 
like Polonius in the tragedy," at supper where ? " not where we 
shall eat, but where we shall be eaten." That he was a worm 
and no man, is still further illustrated, by that text which 
saith of him, " Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, "^^ and 
that which saith, " Who only hath immortality,'^^ as he thrice 



I 



THE devil's pulpit. 13 

declares himself to be "Me ivorm that never dieth." What- 
ever pari of us may go into the fire that never shall oe 
quenched, nothing is more certain, than that when we go 
to Jesus, all the fat and lean will go to the worm that never 
dieth. 

Now hold, and I unlock this mystery — the mystery exists 
only in the misty view of Christian ignorance, for this our noble 
science — 

" That, like the rock that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway meets the storm; 
Though round its sides the rolling clouds are spread. 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head/' 

The intolerance of Christian ignorance might be ready to 
exclaim, that at this rate we could make anything of Jesus 
Christ. I certainly proved him to be a horse, and now I 
have proved him to be a worm: yes, and if you'll honor 
me with your attention hereafter, I will prove him to be a 
fish; and that you may not think that I treat the matter 
lightly, I will prove him to be a pair of scales, and you shall 
weigh him for yourselves. Remembering only, I pray, that 
a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but the true scales 
are his delight. 

In a word, we shall trace the real and only Jesus Christ, 
through every one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, to have 
been nothing more than the personified genius of each of 
those signs (that is, of the sun, as considered in each of them), 
the same with varying physical phenomena throughout his 
annual course. 

As but look, I pray, on any projection of the signs of the 
Zodiac you please — immediately before the Horse, or Centaur, 
of November, you shall see the scorpion, black-beetle, or 
**worm that never dieth ;^^ the genius of October, the first of 
the winter months, standing there, in the gates of hell, that is 
the point at which the Sun dips below the Equator. And 
there stands the worm, &c., to testify to the whole world, that 



14 THE devil's pulpit. 

that fire, whose cheering light and heat is now about to 
be abated, and apparently withdrawn, shall yet never be 
quenched. 

Upon these ingenious figments, so egregiously misunder- 
stood, and put so madly from their scope and purport, have 
our clergy contrived to play upon the ignorance of the people. 
But no single discourse, nor I fear the discourses of a whole 
winter, will be sufl[icient to possess you of all the treasures of 
this delightful science, in which, as you advance, you will 
see all that is so apparently wild — so monstrously confused, 
and such. a jumble of contradictions and absurdities, as to 
outrage all faculty of method and sobriety in man ; like matter 
in chaos, falling in at the command of a superior genius into 
a most superb and beautiful orrery, exhibiting all the great 
phenomena of nature, and solving every problem of this mystic 
science. We prove to you that Christianity is a fable, with 
all the precision of a mathematical demonstration : showing 
you, not only how, and in what, the fable originated, but what 
were its meaning and moral : as we work out a quadratic 
equation, by presenting to you, the unknown quantity in 
defiance of your mind's power of saying nay to it ; solving 
all the difficulties, explicating all the mysteries, reconciling 
all the seeming contradictions, and answering all the requisi- 
tions of the great problem. The key that corresponds to the 
wards of the lock, however complex and intricate those 
wards may be — the key that fits into the lock — the key that 
actually throws the bolt and opens the door — is the key of the 
door. 

That key, with respect to the Christian Religion, is its alle- 
gorical astronomical sense. With that key, I wiil return, on 
some future occasion, to the question, " Where is he that is 
born king of the Jews ?" I will unlock the Augean stable, and 
bring down such a stream of science, and true learning, upon 
the congregated filth of barbarous ignorance, as shall wash 
away the manger and the King of the Jews, and the Jews, and 
the wise men and all, and purify the atmosphere of reason 



THE devil's pulpit. 15 

from the pest of Christianity. I shall show you that, thougn 
it may be possible enough for the dunce and the fanatic, the 
half-idiot, or the three-parts knave, to still continue to take 
personifications for persons, allegories for histories, and the 
mere machinery of science for its ultimate scope and end, it 
is not possible for a man of learning, whose learning has ever 
taken its fair range in these investigations, not to know; that 
the Christian religion, as taught in this Christian country, is — 
what I may not call it — craftily practised by great and mighty 
knaves upon the simplicity of ignorance, and the impotence of 
childhood. 

But here, sirs, with no other presumption than such as that 
of those who, in any age of the world, have offered truth and 
science to the world, in the place of the jargon of sanctified 
idiotcy and consecrated falsehood — as Pvthagoras presented 
his demonstration of the equality of the square of the hypote- 
nuse to the squares of the sides of the right-angled triangle — 
as Columbus presented his evidences of the existence of the 
trans-Atlantic continent, and as Galileo asserted his science 
of the earth's motion — in the teeth of monkish ignorance and 
priestly cunning, incapable of anger as of fear ; inviting criti- 
cism, and challenging the opposition of learning, if there be 
any learning in the world that can oppose us — we offer you 
our great solution of the evangelical riddle. It can only confuse 
you while you are ignorant ; it can only offend you while you 
are dreaming. Awake, and you will find that we were awake 
before you : and you will come, again and again, to this true 
school of intellect and reason, to demand and to receive, I trust, 
not eternal repetitions of a silly story, but to imbibe the mind- 
invigorating draughts of genuine learning, and still increasing 
knowledge. 

" Here nature opens all her secret springs, 
And heaven-born science plumes her eagle wings ; 
Too long hath bigot-rage, with malice swelled, 
Crushed her strong pinions, and her flight withheld — 



16 THE devil's pulpit. 

Too long to check her ardent progress strove : 
So writhes the serpent round the bird of Jove — 
Hangs on her flight, restrains her towering wing, 
Twists its dark folds, and points its venomed stirig ; 
But breaking thus the spell of things divine, 
Her rising pride shall mock the vain design — 
Shall rise to liberty, to life, and light, 
While priests and priestcraft sink to endless night.^ 



END OF THE FIRST DISCOURSE ON THE STAR OF BETHLEHKJl- 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— Allan Cunmngham. 

PART II. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM: 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESSES CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOVEMBER 14, 1830. 



'^ Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of 
Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the East to Jeru- 
salem, saying, * Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for 
we have seen his Star in the East, and are come to worship him,' " — 
Matthew ii. 2. 



I RETURN to this most important subject in which man is in 
terested, to this most delightful science in which man can be 
instructed. I return to the positions of this great science, to 
which on Sunday evening last I brought up the convictions of 
the large auditory which honored me and themselves with a 
most grateful attention. 

The Star of Bethlehem has brought us up to the stable-door ; 
and no person of rational understanding, who has travelled with 
us thus far, can any longer doubt that we are in possession of, 
what you shall seek for in vain in any church or chapel, or 
from any other minister of the gospel in this metropolis — we 
are in possession of the ke?/ of the stable-door ! Ye have seen 
it pass into the lock — ye have seen it ride over all the intrica- 
cies and involutions of the wards — ye have heard it, without any 
strain or effort, throw the bolt, and now the door is open ; and 
** Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy^ which shall 

2 



18 THE devil's pulpit. 

he to all people. For unto you is lorn this day, in tne city of 
David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord, and this shall he 
a sign^ That is, as I have shown, this Christ the Lord, shall 
be one of" the signs of the Zodiac. Walk in, ye lovers of true 
Science, ye friends of genuine and real learning, who would as- 
sist her in the arduous struggle in which she is engaged, and aid 
her rapidly-approaching triumph o'er her barbarous foes, the 
priests and priest-ridden dunces, who, with all their pretended 
zeal and attachment to the gospel, when brought to the test of 
rational criticism, stand convicted of knowing no more about 
the gospel than the gospel knows about them. They have but 
fed on the husks and shells of knowledge. Here we have the 
kernel. 

But why, say they, make we such a parade of our learning ? 
why this apparatus of philology, criticism, and science, set be- 
fore minds so little able to appreciate, so incompetent to judge, 
as we must suppose the minds of the many to be ? and why, if I 
really wish to communicate knowledge and truth to the people, 
why not follow the example of the preachers of the gospel, and 
speak in such language as is familiar to them, and so give them 
reading made easy, and lectures adapted to the meanest capacity ? 
My answer is, would men but be faithful to their own capacities, 
there would be no mean capacities to be met with. It is only 
they who are afraid of hearing what they never heard before, 
whose capacities are mean indeed. I have found it quite as 
easy, as I am sure it is more just and generous, to raise the 
understandings of my hearers to the level of my own ; and if I 
find them ignorant, at least not to leave them so. We are all 
of us ignorant before we are learned ; and those who are for 
ever for coming down to our level while we are down, show 
but too plainly, that it is the aim of their charity to keep us 
down. In offering instruction to my fellow-men, I would treat 
them as my fellows ; and must, therefore, plainly tell them 
that, it is not for me to descend, but it is for them to rise : the 
level between us is to be found, not by my humility, but by 
their ambition. I will not make myself a dunce, but I will 
make them scholars. Be it asked, " And if I rob them of their 



THE devil's pulpit. 19 

faith [which God forgive me for being devilishly like to doj, 
what will I give them in its stead ?" I answer, T will give them 
learning in its stead— I will set before them the treasures of 
science and knowledge, to no worse effect than to create in 
them an appetite for extended information, whose cravings shall 
never more be satisfied with the baby's lesson, nor content with 
eternal repetitions of what they knew before ; but shall demand 
continual supplies of what they did not know before ; such sup- 
plies as shall increase the store of their intellectual wealth, im- 
prove their minds, enlarge their hearts, and free them from 
the yoke of priestcraft. As now, sirs, ye shall see the use of 
so much learning, in the learned languages, as shall not cost 
you the expense of a classical education, nor the labor of your 
whole life to attain ; but as, by your few hours of diligent atten- 
tion to these lectures, even with your pleasure and entertain- 
ment, you shall find yourselves to have acquired ; till there shall 
not be an individual of competent faculties that had been fairly 
applied to these studies, but who shall be a better scholar than 
any clergyman or preacher of the gospel, if he be dunce enough 
to believe the gospel himself, can possibly be. See now, sirs, 
how we advance I As, would not a man who had but the 
reason and proper spirit of a man, put to himself the question 
— If these so-called sacred writings of the Old and New 
Testaments were written, as indeed they purport to be, and 
most certainly were, ** in ages long ago betid," in conformity 
to the notions of men who have long ago ceased to exist, 
and in languages which have long ceased to be spoken ; 
who but the sheerest idiot and booby would dream of the 
possibility of a translation of them into a modern language ; 
or that a sense of them, according to the sense, or nonsense 
of modern notions, could possibly come even within a guess 
at their original significancy ? But with the simple data of 
our admissions, as the axioms and postulates of this science; 
1. That men, ten thousand years ago, were of the same na- 
ture as they are at present; their heads grew upon their 
shoulders, I suppose ; and they had ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, 
in them — that is, they had the same sources and means of 



20 THE devil's pulpit. 

acquiring ideas. 2. They had but the same, and no other 
means and ways of communicating the ideas the^ had acquired. 
3. The same things made the same impressions. 4. And the 
same impressions produced the same reflections. 

We arrive at conclusions, than which, the corollaries of a 
mathematical problem are not more consequential and demon 
strative. Of these corollaries, one of the first is, that, as all 
ideas of mankind must necessarily have been received into the 
mind in the same way, so there must be a wonderful sameness 
and similarity in the modes, figures, signs, and forms of ex- 
pressing those ideas, and as wonderful a sameness of associa- 
tion of idea — the one calling up the other by a similar action 
of a similarly-constituted brain, in all ages, and among all 
nations of mankind. Hence arises the large and very extensive 
class of words, called radicals: that is words, which are the 
roots and bases of innumerable varieties of language, but which, 
when analyzed, are found to be essentially the same, and of the 
same signification, in all the languages of the earth. And 
these, you have the advantage of learning, as you learn the 
general chords and principles of music, by your own ear ; by 
hearing me repeat to you, as is my custom, all the different 
languages through which the text on which I treat, has been 
derived. These radicals, are always monosyllables ; they never 
require more than three letters, and may often be expressed 
by two, or only one. Hence the earliest or most ancient 
languages of men are all monosyllahic, and all the combinations 
found with them, are merely grammatical, and artificial varia- 
tions of the sound, but not of the sense ; and have been intro- 
^duced in much later times, sometimes poetically, and tastefully, 
but oftener to hide and conceal the original source whence they 
were derived. 

Of which last sort of words, you can not have a more stri- 
king specimen than that of the first noun in our text, the name 
Jesus : of which, the last syllable, us, is no part of the word 
itself, but the mere Latin termination, added to the only real 
and complete word, Jes. Thus Jesus Christus, is good Latin, 
but Jesus Christ, is neither good Latin, nor good English, noi 



THE devil's pulpit. 21 

good sense. For in taking away the Latin termination from 
Christus, to render it into the English, Christ, we should take 
away the Latin termination from Jesus, and render it into Jes. 
The Greek word for Jesus, being I/?o-»?, which is precisely the 
same adoption of the Latin termination into Greek, as our 
Jesus is an adoption of it, into English, is one among the ten 
thousand proofs that betray the Monkish Latin origin of our 
New Testament ; that is, that the Latin, and not the Greek, 
was the first language in which the contents of the sacred 
Diegesis of Egypt, was brought to the knowledge of the priests 
of Europe. The translation was made from the Latin into the 
Greek, and a Greek original pretended, not till after it was 
found expedient, to oppose a check to the advance of curiosity, 
and to throw a thicker veil over the mysteries of the gospel- 
craft. Had the Greek been the original, the Greek for Jesus, 
must have had the Greek termination o?, and been Ir?o-o? ; but 
the Greek hang, is bad Greek, and nothing more than the 
Latin Jesus, exhibited in Greek characters. The written docu- 
ments, the Diegesis, from which first the Latin, and subse- 
quently, the so falsely called original Greek, was derived, have 
necessarily perished : but Christian ignorance, in mistaking its 
fable for a history, and committing itself to criticism, by fixing 
an era, and a scene, when and where its imagined events oc- 
curred, has supplied the means of demonstrating the utter 
falsehood of its pretences : inasmuch as we are able to adduce 
positive evidence of the existence and prevalence of precisely 
the same story in India, Persia, Egypt, and Greece, for more 
than fifteen hundred years before the date assigned to the pre- 
tended occurrence of it, in Palestine. But taking the words of 
the Greek text, the highest written authority to which we can 
familiarly appeal, in their most simple and primitive signifi- 
cancy, and suffering no suborned or forestalled sense to pervert 
us from the sense which those words would naturally convey, 
we shall find it far, infinitely far, from any such historical, or 
even pretended historical sense, as our fraudulent English 
translation, and still more fraudulent preachers of the gospel, 
would palm on our insulted reason. 



22 THE devil's pulpit. 

** Now when Jesus was borji in Bethlehem of Judea, in the 
days of Herod the King,''^ Now, if this were an accurate 
rendering of the Greek (which it is not) and if the common- 
sense meaning of our English words, were allowed to be its 
meaning ; who could, for one moment, pretend that this was 
the style of writing of any one who could have been contem- 
porary of the events he was about to relate, who had ever lived 
with, seen, or conversed with the person of whom he speaks ? 
How fatal, therefore, is it to any pretence that anything more 
than a romance was intended. But look at the literality of the 

text : T« 6£ lri(T8 yevTi devTog ev Br]d\e£;j. Trjg hSaiag ; the JeSy Or YeS, being 

in the house of corn, of the I«Jata in the days of Herod the 
king.^^ Thus have we the literal translation of the mongrel 
Greek, Hebrew, and Phoenician roots of this egregiously-mis- 
construed sentence, of which the sense is, the Sun — (that is, 
Yes), being in the Zodiacal sign of the Virgin, who is distin- 
guished by the spike of corn in her hand, and is the genius of 
the month of August, which is the harvest month, which is 
further distinguished by the definition B?70 Xsf^, the house of corn 
or bread of the I» Aa^a, that is most literally of the Zodiac, and 
still further, by the addition, in the days of Herod the king, 
tv TjjiepaLs HpcxySa m BaaiXeios, that is, not in the days, as signifying 
the reign of any king on earth, called Herod, but in, or accord- 
ing to, the Ephemeris, or Almanac of Hercules, the Sun. That 
name, Herod, being compounded of vpojs depas, that is, the 
Hero of the Skin, the well-known epithet of Hercules, de- 
rived from his always being described, sculptured, painted, and 
distinguished, as wearing the skin of the Cleonean Lion. For 
whatever real personages in real history, might have assumed 
the mythologico-astronomical name of Herod, it is certain that 
no King Herod, or Herod the Tetrarch, as a person that ever 
existed upon earth, was intended by the Baai\evs Jlpud^g, or 
King Herod of the Gospel, but, as the literality of the name 
betrays, the Hero of the Skin, King Hercules, that is the Sun : 
who, in his annual progress through the signs of the Zodiac, 
before he can reach the Lion of July, and so invest himself 
with the skin of the Lion, as to become the Hero of the Skin, 



THE DEVILS PXJLFIT. 23 

that is, the Herod indeed, is obliged to kill all the children that 
were m Judea, that is, in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof ; 
which is a most accurate definition of the Zodiac, E© Br}B Xse/i, 

Kai ev TTacri roig opioig avrrjg. 

In Bethlehem, and in all the divisions of it, in which you 
will see that there are two children, ano Suths, of two years old, 
Gemini the twins of May, which this solar Herod is said to kill, 
in our English rendering ; but in the literal Greek avaipsiv, to 
take or put away, or pass through, as the sun passes through 
the sign of the twins, av€i\s r«? TraiSas ;* and that there were but 
two of them, is discovered by the reference made to the as- 
tronomical scheme of the prophet, that is to say, of the old 
astronomer, Jeremy. 

" In Rama, was there a voice heard^ lamentation and weepings 
and great mourning ; Rachel weeping for her children" Why 
in Rama ? What is Rama ? Why Rama is the Hindoostanee, 
Coptic, Syriac, Phoenician word, and literal name for the Zodiac ; 
the high, the elevated, the exalted. And this whole tale of the 
birth of Christ in the days of Herod the king, is found in the 
Bhagavat Pourana of India, in the Mythriacs of Persia, and in 
the fabulous writings ascribed to Zoroaster, the supposed con- 
temporary of Moses. As, turn to the old astronomy ascribed 
to Moses, you will find that Rachael had but two sons, which 
were Joseph and Benjamin, and there they are to this day in 
Rama, the two boys of the Zodiac; as Joseph and Benjamin 
together are accounted as making up but one of the twelve 
signs; and this King Herod is no other than such a sort of 
personage as our English John Bull — he never grows old — he 
never goes dead — but he is the bloody King Herod, the 
naughty man that comes to take away the naughty children. 

As we find the grave historian Eusebius assuring us that 
the martyrdom of Polycarp, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, 
at Smyrna, 200 years after the pretended date of this affair 

* He took away the boys, i. e. the boys of the Sun, Pi-Ades, 
whence the Greeks formed their word, naiScg, boys, was a common 
title of the Sun, and meant particularly, the Sun in Gemini. 



24 THE devil's pulpit. 

took place by order of this self-same bloody King Herod, not- 
withstanding the worms eating him up ; as they do every year, 
when he enters into the sign of the Scorpion of October, and 
gives not God the glory. But not alone the name of King Herod, 
but the name of the children whom it is so ridiculously supposed 
that King Herod slew, in its original significancy, and historical 
derivation, demonstrates the astronomical relations of the whole 
mystery, avsiXs rravrag rag ILaiSag — Herod the King (that is Hercules, 
the Hero of the Skin), put away all the boys. Now the Greek 
word liaideg bctrays to us the Coptic article lit, in composition 
with the Phoenician Ades, the whole word Pi-Ades being the com- 
mon title of the Sun, formed of the radicals Pi. Ad. Es., The 
Lord Fire ; hence the Latin word for a boy, puer, is the Greek 
word TTvp for Fire, the root of the English words pure and 
purity, and the key of the evangelical conundrum, *^ Blessed 
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," that is, the Stars 
that shine the brighest are nearest to the Sun ; and these boys 
in Rama, which Herod passed over, are demonstrated to have 
been none other than the fiery boys of the Zodiac — the two 
bright clusters of Stars representing the figure of two boys, 
which the Sun enters in the month of May, and for which, 
Rachael weeps, and will not be comforted — not because they 
are killed, but because they are not ; that is, because they are 
rendered invisible, no longer to be seen, are absorbed in the 
superior effulgence of the Sun in passing through them, as he 
does in the month of May, when 

-Lost, dissolved in his superior rays, 






One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze, 
Overflows his courts.^' 

Thus, in that name of God, Hercules, reduced to its radical, we 
have the three Ammonian primitives, which are i^n V^ -tin 
light, all, fire, which is in the composition the light, the unir>ersal 
fire, or palindromically, the fire, the universal source of light, 
that is the Sun. As there, in the Zodiac in the Lion of July 
IS that Cleonean Lion, whom the light, the universal fire, that 
is the Sun, the H.poig Separog, the King Herod, The Heroof the 



THE devil's pulpit. 25 

S kin t every year overcomes and passes through in his annual 
progress, with whose skin he seems to invest himself as a trophy 
of his victory ; and as in which investiture, he is addressed in 
those words of the Psalmist, or ancient magical incantations 
appointed to be rfad through every month, in honor of the 
twelve months of the year, " Lord my God, thou art be- 
come exceeding glorious, thou art clothed with majesty and 
honor ; thou deckest thyself with light as with a garment, and 
spreadest out the heavens like a curtain. sing unto God, 
and sing praises unto his name ; magnify him that rideth upon 
the Heavens as upon a horse ; even God in his holy habitation." 
Thus, too, the epithet added to the name of Herod, that is, 
the Hero of the Shriy Herod the King, in Hebrew, nVn Moloch ; in 
Greek ^aaiXevs; in Latin Rexj the Ruler, the Regulator ; was a 
characteristic epithet of the Sun — the Sun to rule the day, the 
monarch or only governor of the whole solar system. 

And why should Christ be said to be born in Bethlehem 
of Judea, and be called by the wise men, the BacrtAcuj roiv ln^aioiVy 
the King, the Rex, the Governor or Ruler of the days of Jao, 
but in fulfilment of that prophecy of the prophet, that is, in 
accordance with that astronomical sketch of the astronomical 
priest, Micah : ** And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah 
art not the least among the Princes of Judah, for out of thee 
shall come a Governor that shall rule my people IsraeV^ ? Now, 
would any but a Christian idiot, who had bid good night for 
ever to all use of reason, or a Christian knave, who would say 
anything, insult us by saying that there ever was a Bethlehem 
upon earth that ever brought forth a Governor or Ruler upon 
earth, that ever governed or ruled an Israel upon earth ? And 
are we to endure the intolerable insult and ignominy any longer, 
that a set of sanctified idiots and solemn dunces, a proud and 
aristocratical priesthood — too haughty as they are, to be willing, 
and too ignorant as they are, to be able, to confront us — should 
be allowed to persuade the world that all these glorious prophe- 
cies of " the w^onderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the ever- 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of whose 
government and dominion there should be no end, upon the 



26 THE devil's pulpit. 

throne of David his father, to order and to establish it with 
judgment and with justice for ever," had their verification in the 
pretended real history of such a king of the Jews ; who, if his 
history were historical, presents us with nothing more than the 
history of a thief, born in a stable, living on the high road, and 
dying on the gallows ! A King of the Jews that never had his 
title recognised but in a sarcasm — never triumphed but on the 
cross — never reigned, but as if all our kings should be like to 
reign in the same fashion, we should not long want Radical 
Reform. 

But turn we to the sacred text itself, of the astronomical 
Micah (ch. v. 2), than which nothing can be more astronomi- 
cal. And thou, the House of Corn, Mansion of the Virgin, 
Genius of Increase and Abundance, though thou be little 
among the thousands of Judah, that make up the various signs 
of the Zodiac, out of thee shall he come to me, or shine forth, 
who is the Governor of Israel (that is, of the whole Solar 
system) whose goings-forth from the East, have been from the 
days of eternity," that is, the Sun, beyond all possibility of 
being anything else, the never-created, eternally-existing Sun, 
whose goings-forth from the East to pass through the twelve 
signs of the Zodiac, most literally and really have been from 
everlasting. And what means the astrologe by those words : 
" And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among 
the thousands of Judah," but the astronomical fact, which if 
you will but look upon the thousands of Judah, your own eyes 
will testify — that the Stars which make up the Constellation of 
Bethlehem Ephratah, which is the sign of the Virgin, or Good- 
woman of the Zodiac, are particularly small; those that should 
make up the head, especially, being so minute, as hardly to 
be visible to the naked eye ; which gave occasion to the alle- 
gorists for their joke, that if you want to find a good woman, 
you must look for the woman without a head. The Pagan 
sculptors represented their Venus with a particularly small head, 
while the Christian painters represented their Venus, the Virgin 
Mary, whose house or domicil actually is in Bethlehem 
Ephratah, as a maid with no head at all. The brightest stars 



THE devil's pulpit. 27 

m this constellation being those which form the arms, or vinde- 
miatrix, in the elbow ; thus actually supplying the pun, that has 
never been too gross for the piety of our Catholic brethren, 
where, in the office of the conception of the Blessed Virgin, they 
call her — 

Judith Invincible I 

Woman of arms : 

Fair Mishag* Virgin, that 

True David, warms !" 

Eternal God ! why hast thou given us reason to insult us with 
Christianity ? 

But see, sirs, and your conviction shall seal the truth it sees 
— how beautiful, how majestic, how delightful is science. From 
the eternal and never-failing regularity of the goings-forth or 
progress of the San from sign to sign, through his annual course, 
the minds of men first received the idea of Truth, of punctu- 
ality, and of certainty : and hence among all nations, and in all 
languages, we find them giving precisely the same name to what- 
ever they held to be true, which they had previously given to 
the Sun, whose imaginary moral attributes were directly derived 
from his real physical ones ; and thus the faithful and true wit' 
ness in Heaven, the Sun, was looked up to, or pointed to, by 
every man addressing another man, and meaning to say, that 
what he said was truth. It is true as God^s in Heaven ; that is. 
It is as true, as accurate, and as regular, as are the goings-forth 
of the Sun, *^ whose goings-forth have been from of old — from 
everlasting." So the name of the Sun, in every country in 
which the Sun hath shone, is universally found to be the 
same as that of their form of assent or agreement, or pledge 
of promise. And as the worship of the Sun under the name 
of Jupiter Ammon, was infinitely the most prevalent over all 
the world — above all other forms of worship,! the ancient Phoe- 



* Abishag, a Shunammite, 1 Kings, i. 3. 
t " Quamvis ^thiopum populis, Arabumque beatis 
Gentibus, atque Indis, unus sit Jupiter, Ammon.'* 

Lucan 1. 



28 THE devil's pulpit. 

nician word Am — On, literally signifying the j^re, the being, 
the name Ammon, pronounced in all manner of ways, through 
the nose, through the throat, but always with the eyes shut, to 
relieve them from the dazzling of the Sun's rays, as A-men, 
Au-men, Ah-men, 0-men, has found its way, and to this day 
retains its place at the end of every prayer, ending, ** through 
Jesus Christ our Lord Ammon;" that is, most literally, that 
Jesus Christ our Lord, is Ammon ; and Jesus Christ and Jupi- 
ter-Ammon, stand thus demonstrated to have been but one 
and the self-same prosopopeia — that is, the personified Genius 
of the Sun. As Jesus Christ is made to say of himself, in that 
beautiful and scientific astronomical Mythos, called the Revela- 
tion of St. John, " lam the Amen, the faithful and true witness,'^ 
So the name Yesus or Jesus, so deceitfully sheltered from the 
discovery of its real meaning, by the Latin termination us (which 
is no part of it) in its dissyllabic and earlier form, is yes, which 
has becomes our English form of assent or pledge of fidelity 
and truth ; as we say. Yes, with the same meaning as Amen, 
that is, verily, it is so — or I consent — I will — that is, by-God 1 
wilL Hues — Yes — Im — being the most ancient name of the god 
Bacchus ; and absolutely retained to this day upon all our 
Christian altar-pieces and pulpit-cloths in those three mystical 
letters I: H: S, which are Greek letters, absurdly read as 
Roman letters, by our Romish Monks, as if they were to stand 
for the words, Jesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus the Savior of 
Men: whereas they really are the name at full length of the 
Pagan god, Bacchus, the god of Wine, in whose honor at those 
altars our Christian Bacchanals, not knowing what they do, con- 
tinue to this day to drink the sacramental wine, which is the 
blood of the grape — that is, by metonymy upon metonymy, the 
blood of Bacchus ; that is of Jes, or Yes — the personified genius 
of the Sun, whose name is written in those letters I, H, S, and 
surrounded with that circle of golden rays, than which your 
ingenuity could not write the word Sun, nor depict it in an 
hieroglyphical representation less to be mistaken, even if you 
were the most ingenious man alive. And this same I, E, S, is 



THE devil's pulpit. 29 

composed of the Ammonian radicals, I, the one ; and E, S, the 
fire : i. e. the one great fire : i. e. the Sun, under which iden- 
tical name he was the Supreme Deity of the ancient fire-wor- 
shippers of Persia, from whom, his rites were adopted, hy those 
who are absurdly called the primitive Christians. 

The extent of Christian stupidity, and of Christian igno- 
rance, would have been the most unaccountable of all the 
phenomena of the universe, if its own history had not sup- 
plied the account. Men have been trained to prefer ig- 
norance to learning, and have chosen to be driven mad and 
wild by faith, rather than to be instructed, enlightened, and 
improved, by reason and philosophy. But as the intoler- 
ance of the religious feeling, alike in all religions, was ever 
more opposed to improvement than any other, we reap 
a contingent advantage from the consecration of ignorance. 
The long continuance of the nomenclature and technicalities 
'of theology, and their adoption from one country to another, 
where every thing might be allowed to change, and to improve — 
but religion — enables us the more easily to work through the 
difficulties of the problem, and to demonstrate the fallacy that 
runs through all religions. Thus, there is a long list of words, 
which our Christian parrots prattle forth, )f which they have 
never dreamed, or thought more of the meaning and signifi- 
cancy, than a parrot, and which have been adopted and natu- 
ralizedf without ever being translated. I need not mention the 
Amen and Hallelujah, and Hosanna, and, Glory, and Sane- 
tification, and Holiness, of the derivative meaning of which, a 
horse is not more ignorant than a Christian : but our words 
God, and the Sun, are really, the one, a Hebrew, the other an 
old Coptic word: both signifying the same thing: but both 
alike adopted without being inquired into; and naturalized 
without being understood. God, or Gad, being the never- 
translated name in the ancient Tsabaism, or star-worship, of 
the constellation of the Ram, or Lamb of God, as I have ex- 
plained to you, the Rama, the great, the elevated, that is, the 
first of the signs of the Zodiac — that is, by metonymy of the 



30 THE devil's pulpit. 

Sun, in that signs Aries, the Ram, or Lamb of God,* whose 
astronomical name, Yes, is the root of our Jesus, the Lamb of 
God : as our English words, Sun, and Day, are found in the first 
primitives, not of a particular language, but of the most ancient 
and universul ever uttered by man. San, pronounced Zan, 
Zon, Son, and Zun, that is, with every vowel, and every mode 
of uttering the initial, that the tongue could compass, like 
Gadf Gid, Ged, God, and Gud, was, like that word, the com- 
mon Ammonian name, for the Sun and Juj)iier, as is witnessed 
by that old inscription, quoted by Bryant, on the tomb of 
Jupiter ; who, like Herod, Hercules, Bacchus, Mithra, Apollo, 
Chrishnta, Vichenu, and all the other allegorized types of the 
Sun, "was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and 
buried ;" V.h fiiyag Kctrai Zav ov Aia kikXtjckbci. *' Here was 
buried the great T.av, whom they call Am," that is the great 
Sun, whom they call God. When the first attempt was made 
to represent the Sun in pictorial hieroglyphics, a mere straight 
stroke, as a picture of the finger of the priest, pointing to the 
Sun, gave the letter T, or J, if part of the hand be seen with it : 
while the circle of the Sun's disk formed the 0, and thus the 
radical of all languages, I, 0, running through the theology 
of all nations and of all ages, harder or softer in the Ai-o (Ja-o), 
Za-o, Jahavah, Jehova, Jeve, Juve, Jove, all betray, that the 
Sun, and the Sun alone, was the primordial signification of the 
erms, for God and Jesus ; and bring us to an absolute demon- 
stration of the truth, betrayed to us, by the unguarded father 
Tertuilian, that many think that the Sun is our God, and refer 
us to the religion of the Persians {Apologet. c. 16), and still more 
explicitly acknowledged in Heb. xii. 29 : ** Our God is a con- 
sumin^ Fire,^^ 



• As the Latin word Arks, the Ram^ was derived from the 
Egyptian vrord Arez, the Sun : as that word is found compound with 
DouSf which is the same as Deus, God, the whole word Asaaorjsy 
signifying God — the Sun, the same mentioned by Tertuilian, as 
Dysares, the God of all the Arabian nations. 



THE devil's PXJLPIT. 3m 

I am not able, within the compass of such a measure of 
your attention as I may reasonably detain, to do justice to the 
challenges of the subject I have taken in hand ; but (if I 
have succeeded ; as your favor seems to imply that I have), 
I shall hope you will return with me, on Sunday next, to the 
Stable of Bethlehem, furnished with the besom of philosophy, 
to sweep away the filth of priestcraft, and to bring down such 
a stream of genuine science and of real learning, as shall wash 
out the cradle, the manger, the little squalling God, and the 
wise men and all, and purify the infected air from the pest of 
Christianity. For this, sirs, you will now perceive, is the na- 
ture of true learning, that like the light, it is communicable, 
easy of access, and equally beneficial to all men — most pleasant 
in the being sought for, most delightful in the being found : 
" More to he desired than gold, than much fine gold ; sweeter 
also than honey or the honeycomb,^- Ye friends of truth, 
of science, and of learning, which never yet shrunk, nor 
will shrink from its most desired, most sought-for conflict, 
with all that is reputed as learned in the world : protect me 
but by the vindication of your own rights from the rudenesses 
of barbarous ignorance, and from the impertinences of those 
wild and furious savages of the gospel, who in all aa^es of the 
world have been the priests' dogs, wrought up mto madness, 
for no other end, than to terrify inquiry from looking into 
the baseness of their craft, detecting their ignorance, exposing 
their falsehood, and trampling on their power. The noble 
science which I familiarize thus easily to promiscuous audi- 
tories, I have intimated to the world in my work, m challenge 
of the world's criticism, the Diegesis, and have offered to 
maintain in the Latin tongue, before either of the universities 
of England, as Reghellini and Dupuis have offered its grand 
principles to the enlightened nations of the Continent in the 
French language ; and not a member of any university in Eu- 
rope, not a priest in the world, has ever dared to enter the 
lists, or to attempt even a resistance to this Almighty demon- 
stration of the utter falsehood of the gospel. This demonstra- 
tion is science itself; and in every position that it off'ers you, 



32 THE devil's pulpit. 

does not ask you to believe, nor wish you to be persuaded, but 
your persuasion must follow upon your knowledge ; and you will 
find, that as fast as your knowledge comes in, your Christianity 
will run out. 

In this school, sirs, ye come not to eternal repetitions of the 
same spell ; we have no baby's lesson for you ; the sincere milk 
of the word has turned sour ; the priests have had all the 
cream of it, and we have no stomach left for hogswash. We 
are not going to be brought down, in the same notions that we 
were brought up. Our lesson is not any longer, " As it was 
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ;" but our say is, 
that the power of priests and priestcraft to impose upon us, 
which was in the beginning, is not now, and never shall be 
affain. 



END or THE SECOND DISCOURSE ON THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT JS.''— Allan Cunningham. ~^ 

PART III. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOVEMBER 21, 1830. 



" Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we have seen hxi 
Star in the East, and are come to worship him," — Matthew ii. 2. 



Upon returning this third time to the stable of Bethlehem, I 
am obliged to suppose my hearers already in possession of what 
I am sure those who have been hearers of the two preceding 
discourses on this subject, have felt to be those rich treasures 
of philological, scientific, and historical learning, which it is 
the great aim of these lectures to lay before the public mind. 
I must now take them up at the spot where, on Sunday evening 
last, I left them, that is, at the stable-door in Bethlehem of Judea 
— where I had the honor of introducing them to an acquaint- 
ance with Herod the king, and of conciliating their forgiveness 
and reconciliation with his Herodian maiestv fcr h'*^ having 
slain — «* All the children from two years ocd a?id under, that 
were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof "^^ — which gave 
occasion to Rachel, notwithstanding her having been dead 
1,732 years before it happened, to weep for her children — when 
she ^^ would not he comforted because they were not.^* 

Here, then, we resume the thread of these delightful studies. 
The anatomy of language has enabled us to lay open tlte primi- 

3 



34 THE devil's pulpit. 

tive ideas, involved in those mystical words : " Now when 
Jesus was horn in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod 
the king.''^ 

1. We have found, historically, that these very words — 
that is, the meaning of them — in the whole identity of every- 
thing they refer to, or by any possibility could refer to, are a 
direct plagiarism from the Sanscreet text of the Bhaeravat 
Fourana (that is, in English, the Book of God) of the Hindoos, 
ascribed, and universally admitted to have been written, by 
divine inspiration of the Brahminical priest, Vyasa, who lived 
and flourished in India, at the lowest calculation, fifteen hun- 
dred years before our unluckily-imagined epocha of the birth of 
Christ. 

2. We have found astronomically, that in the most minute, 
even the most wonderfully minute applications, as accurately 
as the wax fills up every mark and line engraven in the seal, 
the whole story betrays the character of an astronomical enig- 
ma, or parable, and is a picture in words of the annual phenom- 
ena of the solar system. 

3. We have found philologically, that, upon tracing back 
the words themselves to their radicals, or first types, their 
literality itself is astronomical ; whereby we have the same 
sort of perfectly mathematical demonstration, as when we work 
out an algebraical problem geometrically, and then work back 
the geometrical result algebraically. 

Thus history, philology, and science, combine in one great 
trinity of demonstration, to prove the falsehood of the gospel. 

The radicals, of our text, read philologically — that is, ac- 
cording to their first types, throw up the perfect and complete 
astronomy. Now when the Sun entered into the zodiacal sign 
of the month of August, in the Ephemeris of Hercules, the 
regulator, then follows, in our English version — " Behold there 
came wise men from the east.'''^ 

But here, again, is an egregious and most deceitfully-intended 
false translation in our English Testaments, in order to produce 
a respect for these imaginary baby-worshippers, to which they 



THE devil's pulpit. 3o 

were by no means entitled. They are not called wise men^ but 
Magi — that is, magicians, or conjurors : notwithstanding the 
strong reason which some may think they have to suspect that 
they were no conjurors. 

The fathers of the church generally speak of these wise men 
of the east as being three kings, in order to make out the ac- 
complishment of that prophecy — " the King of Tharsis and of 
the Isles shall give presents, the Kings of Arabia and Saba 
shall bring gifts.'''' 72d Psalm.^ 

But bring, I pray (as you would in all other sciences), bring 
down the rich stores of the knowledge already acquired, to aid 
ye in the further demonstrations to which now we tend. The 
identity of Jesus Christ, with the Sun, the accordance of all the 
circumstances of his mythological history, from his imaginary 
conception by the Virgin Mary, to his death, resurrection, 
ascension, and final coming again (as he does), every year, to 
judge "both the quick and the dead" — that is, to divide an 
equable proportion of his light and heat to both hemispheres — 
that is, to us and to our antipodes; it being night with them 
when it is day with us, and vice versa. All this having been 
so clearly proved ; the presence of these wise men of the east, 
the first worshippers of the infant Yes — these Magi — with 
their "gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh," which were from 
eternal ages the first tributary offerings consecrated to the Sun, 
is, as it were, the clencher to the nail driven in a sure place — a 
demonstration never to be withdrawn — that the whole story of 
the gospel, from first to last, was derived from these Magi, and 
never was, nor is, any other than that ancient occult or hidden 

* So beautifully versified in the eclogue of The Messiah :— 
" See barbarous nations at thy gates attend. 
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend : 
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, 
And heaped witn products of Sabean springs, 
For thee, Idume's spicy forests blow, 
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.*' 



36 THE devil's pulpit. 

science, which the Apostle Paul calls the Theosophy, or WisdoiB 
of God in a mystery ; but which, in plain English, is the hlacl 
art, or magic. " We speak wisdom,^'* says he, '* to them thai 
are perfect (i. e., to the initiated, to them that are up to the' 
trick on't), yet not the wisdom of this world (i. e., not a science 
of anything historical, or that ever really happened), but the 
Theosophy, or Astronomy in disguise, even the hidden wisdom :" 
Tnv a7ro/f£;fpv/^/zyj/i7j;— that is, the magic, the black art, in honor of 
which, its priests and preachers, to this day, wear black gowns 
and black dresses, the very livery itself of their Divine Master, 
the Black Prince, as you may see, by dissecting the word gospel 
into its radicals — that is, God's spell, the spell, charm, or magi- 
cal incantation, by the repetition of certain words, of which, 
with your eyes shut, and putting your body in the shape of the 
constellation Orion (one knee up, the other thrust from you, and 
the hands clasped together — thus!) it was believed that the 
power of Omnipotence would be bound to attend the conjura- 
tion. 

The founders of this dark science, or black ait, are univer- 
sally admitted to have been these Magi; and our Christian 
antiquaries are proud to quote the celebrated passage from the 
Zend-Avesta of the Persian Zoroaster, which is found so stri- 
kingly coincident with this pretended visit of these eastern Magi 
to the stable of Bethlehem. 

" You, my children," said the great magician, " shall be fkst 
honored by the manifestation of that divine person who is to 
appear in the world : a Star shall go before you to conduct you 
to the place of his nativity ; and, when you have found him^ 
present to him your oblations and sacrifie^es; for he is indeed 
your lord, and an everlasting king."^ 

The apostolic father, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, in the 4th 
of his epistle to the Ephesians, after admitting that " the vir* 
ginity of Mary, and he who was horn of her, as also the story 
of his death, were the subjects of this black art, or hidden sci- 

* Burder's Oriental Customs^ 



THE devil's pulpit. 37 

ence, and done in secret by God ;" asks, and answers himself, 
*" How then was our Savior manifested to the world ? A star 
shone in Heaven, beyond all the other stars, and its light was 
inexpressible, and its novelty struck terror into men's minds. 
All the rest of the stars, together with the sun and moon, were 
the chorus to this star ; but this sent out its light exceedingly 
above them all." 

While in the gospel, quoted by St. Paul, under the title of 
** the Gospel of the circumcision,^^^ we are instructed, not 
merely that the star came and stood over the stable where the 
young child was : which was certainly very polite of him ; but 
that he actually walked into the stable: ^^ And lehold it was all 
filled with lights, greater than the lights of lamps and candles, 
and greater than the light of the Sun itself ^^ 

So the holy church, throughout all the world, has nevei 
ceased to celebrate this aifair of the Star, as an event as real 
and as historical (and indeed it is just as much so) as any other 
portion in this whole bag of moonshine. 

The 6th of January, commonly called Twelfth-day, being 
twelve days from Christmas, famous for eating cakes, and as 
famous for its proof of what cakes have been made of Christians, 
is entitled, in our Christian calendars, The Epiphany of our 
Lord. It is a most holy festival of our most holy church, set 
apart in express commemoration of this appearance of the Star 
%o the magicians, as is acknowledged in the collect or incanta- 
tion for the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gen- 
tiles : *' God, who, by the leading of a star, didst manifest thy 
only-begotten Son to the Gentiles, mercifully grant, that we 
which know thee now by faith, may, after this life, have the 
fruition of thy glorious Godhead, through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
amen." This festival of the Epiphany is so much more sacred 
than the festival of Christmas, merely, that the four successive 

* 2 Galatians 7. The gospel of the circumcision being evidently 
another name for the Gospel of the Infancy^ in which the following 
passage will be found. 1 chap., 10 v. 



38 THE devil's pulpit. 

Sundays which follow it are entitled, 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th Sun- 
days after Epiphany. While, throughout Egypt and the East, 
whence all our Christianity was derived, the day of the Epiph- 
any was considered as the same as that of the birth of Christ, 
and was uniformly observed on the 6th of January. 

The Epiphany, now — the Epiphany ! Should not a sensible 
man insist on knowing what is the ra^dinmg oi Epiphany ? I 
suspect again, that *' thereby hangs a tale." Could you have 
clearer evidence of the fact, that Christianity is kept up solely 
by the artiBce of keeping people in ignorance, than the fact 
which your own experience attests in other persons, and perhaps 
in yourselves, that not one in a million of those who keep the 
festival of Epiphany, who say the collect for Epiphany, who 
stare at the twelfth-cakes in the pastry-cooks' windows on the 
Epiphany, and play at conundrums, and draw lots for the king 
and queen on each returning festival of the Epiphany, ever 
dreams that this game at riddles, and drawing for characters, is 
a continuance of the never-interrupted religion of the ancient 
paganism, in honor of the black art, or magic of these cele- 
brated magicians; and that Phanes compounded into the word 
Epiphany— xhsit is, of or concerning Phanes — is a name per- 
fectly synonymous with the name Christ, literally signifying 
all that the names Jesus and Christ ever signified— that is, the 
Sun, 

Phanseus and Phanes, whence Epiphany, or Manifestation, 
was a distinguishing epithet of the God Apollo — that is, the 
Sun, or the light of the Sun, it being the property of the light 
of the Sun, to make manifest ; upon which property, we find 
the Apostle Paul playing off his puns and riddles ; " that what- 
ever doth make manifest, is light ;"* and John again, that 
** God is light, and in him is no darkness at all ;''^ and " that 
was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
worlds And for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, 
thai he might dissolve the works of the Devil, i. e., the Sun 

* 5 Ephesians. 



THE devil's pulpit. 39 

becomes Phanesy the shiny bright one, that he may dissolve the 
frosts of winter. He appears in Phanes, s(}>avepoj9r], the Ram of 
March, to counteract the evils that followed in the train of the 
diabolical genius of November. 

But the God Eros, which signifies love, and was the Greek 
name for Cupid, received the name of Phanes, Tr^coros yap ccpavBn^ 
because he was first manifested. 

And hence that ridiculous conundrum, which our methodists 
are so fond of quoting, but of the meaning of which they are so 
exquisitely ignorant. God is love ! Yes, he is ; and as much 
as a horse, and no more, know they of the meaning of God's 
being love :* the Roman poets, deriving their theology from 
the Greeks, with as little inquiry as Christians, have mistaken 
Phaeton, who is the same as Phanes, for the Son of the Sun, 
whereas he was unquestionably the Sun himself, as the God of 
light, represented as the first-born of Heaven, as in that verse of 
the ancient Orpheus: — 

Tlporoysvos cpaeOoiv irspini^Keog Hepog vior], 

'' First-born Phaeton, Son of the far-shining morning." 

an attribute, distinctively retained to the Epiphany of Christian- 
ity, in that incantation to the Epiphany — " O God, who didst 
manifest thy only-begotton son to the Gentiles,'*^ as he is ex- 



• God is love ! The fragment of the Babylonian Sanchoniathon, 
translated from the Phoenician into Greek, by Philo Biblius, pre- 
serves to us this passage from the theology of the ancient Phoeni- 
cians : When the Spirit became enamored of his own perfections, 
he begat Cupid — for Cupid was the beginning of the creation of all 
things. Thus little Cupid, and little Jesus who was conceived by 
the Holy Ghost, and who is expressly entitled the beginning of the 
creation of God, are demonstrated to be one and the self-same figment 
of imagination ; and the Christian who denies the real existence of 
the holy child, Cupid, while he believes in the existence of the holy 
child, Jesus, only shows that he uses his reason in the one instance, 
but lays it aside in the other. 



40 TRfi devil's pulpit. 

pressly called by the aged Simeon — " The light to lighten the 
Gentiles^ But nothing hinders that God (who had an only- 
begotten Son, in whom he was well pleased) might have three 
or four only-begotten daughters, with whom he was much 
better pleased— and which supplies the best apology I have: 
ever heard of, to save his moral character from the suspicions 
that attach to his seeming to set so little store by the unfortu- 
nate Jesus. Since we may hope that though he gave his Son 
to die for us, he would not have sacrificed one of his daughters. 
Phaeton had three sisters: Lampetia, Phaethusa, and Phoebe, 
in the pagan mythology. The three Marys — Mary the wife of 
Cleopas, Mary the mother of James, and Mary Magdalene, 
appear in precisely the same analogy as the sisters of Jesus, in 
the Gospel. 

Of the Magi, so deceitfully translated as wise men of the east, 
directed by a star to a stable in which the King of the Isbaiot^ 
was to be born, all our historical knowledge is derived from the 
most ancient of all writings, those transmitted to us from the 
ancient Babylonians and Chaldeans. \ 

They appear to be the first of the human race who conslitu-^ 
ted such a body as that which is now called the clergy. They 
were formed into societies, and resided in colleges, where their 
whole business consisted in the study of astronomy, which they 
disguised from the discovery of the vulgar, under the thick veil 
of allegorical fictions and pretended histories, precisely such 
as the gospels which are come down to us, are found to be. 
Some of their order, from time to time, broke loose from the 
collegiate discipline, and rambled at large, like so many men- 
dicants and begging friars, and were the itinerant methodists 
or missionaries o^ the clerical conclave. They were the pro- 
fessed followers or worshippers of the imaginary founder of 
their craft, a deified personage, called Zoroaster, whose wor- 
ship was styled Magia, or Magic, and the professors of it 
Magi, or Magicians. 

By Zoroaster was denoted both the Deity, and also his 
priest: so that, while there were many real personages who 



THE devil's pulpit. 41 

bore the name of Zoroaster, the original type is a mere fiction 
of imagination, as, I trust, on Sunday last, I instructed you sat- 
isfactorily in the anatomy of words, or the art of dissecting 
them, and bringing them back to their radicals, or first types, 
you will see that Zoroaster is derived from Zor-Aster — that 
is, the two Ammonian primitives. — -^ 

TsouR, Zor^ Sir, the name of God, in Hebrew,* and Aster, 
the SlaVf in Greek. Thus, in Zoroaster, ^or-AsTER, your own 
ear will run the gamut down to the types in our own language 
of the words. Sir, applied in address to every person of the 
rank of a gentleman, and Easter, the East, E,aster, and 
astronomT/, 

So in the name Magia, and magic, originally given to the 
science of astronomy, disguised under the veil of evangelical 
romances, or God^s-spells, as they were called, your ear will 
trace the roots of our name of Magistrate, the Latin Magister, 
the English Master, one of the characteristic titles of Jesus 
Christ, who, in the Persic language, as the ancient Persians 
were the most distinguished fire-worshippers, was called Mithra 
— that is, the Master, 

The absolute identity of the Pagan God, Mithra — that is, 
Zoroaster, the original Zoroaster, or personified genius of the 
Sun, and the Jesus Christ of the gospel, is then so clear and so 
demonstrable, that no man's nose was ever more clearly to be 
proved to be a part and parcel of, and pertaining to, his face, 
than Christ and Mithra, may be shown to be one and the self- 
same personification of the Sun ; and Christianity and magic, 
one and the self-same device for working on the imaginations 
of ignorant and silly people, and rendering them the slaves, 
cowards, and fools, that it was always most convenient for their 
Masters that they should be. 

Thus the birth of the God, Mithra, from the days of an 



• Translated a Rock : whence Petra, Peter, Jew'Pcier, Jupiter 
Paior, and Pater, a father. See " Bryant's Analysis." 



42 THE devil's pulpit. 

infinitely remote antiquity, was represented to have taken place -, 
in a stable, and was celebrated throughout the whole pagan 
world, on none other than the 25th day of December, our 
Christmas-day, the most celebrated of all the Magian festivals; 
where, if you rectify your celestial globe to the moment of twelve 
o'clock at midnight, between the 24th and 25th of December, 
you will find the constellation of the stable of Beihlehem, 
in which Christ is said to be born, the moment he achieves his 
first degree of ascension, at the lower meridian, while you 
shall see the constellation of the Virgin, who is said to bring 
him forth (in no disparagement to her eternal virginity) at that 
moment, come to the line of the horizon ; and thus said to pre- 
side over his nativity. 

As St. Justin, commonly called Justin Martyr, one of the 
earliest of the Christian fathers, actually draws the parallel 
between Christ and Mithra, that Christ w^as born on the same 
day when the Sun takes his annual birth in the stable of Augias 
—that is, in the station of the celestial Goat, where, we have 
seen, is actually placed the stable of Augias, in the sixth labor 
of Hercules. 

'This Capricornus, the Goat, m tne pagan mytnology, is saii 
to have suckled the infant Jupiter ; of which enigma the un- 
doubted solution is, that the Sun, who is Jupiter, first beginning 
to rise on the 25th of December, when the days having been 
at the shortest on the 21st, or St. Thomas's Day (so that 
unbelieving Thomas doubted w^hether the Sun would ever rise 
again), first appear to be lengthening again, the Sun, or Jupi- 
ter, or Jesus, is said to be born, or brought up with the Goat. 
Thus among the nations who reckoned the year to begin at the 
winter solstice — that is, in Capricornus, the Goat, the first sen- 
tence of the first chapter of their book of Genesis was, as in 
the first copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch, '*In the beginning 
the Goat created the heavens and the earth," while those who 
reckoned the year to begin from the vernal equinox — that is, 
when the Sun enters the sign of Aries, the Ram, which is the 
tribe o^ Gad, in the Zodiacal Israel, placed Gad as the first of 



THE devil's pulpit. 43 

the tribes, and accommodating their magic to their astronomy, 
have handed down their Hebrew text, which has become our 
magic: " In the beginning Gad — that is, the Ram, created the 
heaven and the earth." 

This creation takes place every year on the 25th of March, 
called Lady-day, or the day of the conception of the blessed 
Virgin Mary, who, exactly nine months afterward, on the first 
moment of the 25th of December, brings forth her first-born, 
Jesus, and lays him in a manger, because there was no room 

for them in the inn : sv rrj <j)aTvv, Sion hk rjv avrotg TOTTog ev roi 

KaraXvuaTL, As you will sce that there is really not room enough 
ni the pavilion of the Virgin, when, with the spike of corn in 
one hand, and the scales of September in the other, she drops 
little Jesus out of her bosom, and he tumbles down into the 
stable, the nadir, or lower meridian, the precise astronomical 
position of the Sun at that moment. 

Now, sirs, at that moment, to the accuracy of the setting of 
a watch, what is the state of the visible heavens, in the con- 
struction of the planisphere ? Why, this it is : at the lower 
meridian you have the stable of Bethlehem, in which Christ is 
born ; on the eastern point of the horizon you have the sign of 
the Virgin, with the great star Vindemiatrixy in her elbow, 
just peering above the horizon, of which Star the magi, or wise 
men, express themselves — ^' We have seen his star in the 
east.^^ At the upper meridian, you have the constellation 
Cancer, the Crab, which includes the cradle of Jupiter, literally 
the lo-Sepe — that is, the manger of Jao, from which mistaken 
words, have been formed the name of the imaginary husband of 
the Virgin, Joseph. While on the western horizon, you have 
the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world ; im- 
mediately above which, you will see the Epiphany, or " mani- 
festation of Christ to the Gentiles," which is none other than 
the beautiful constellation, Orion, which you may see this very 
evening; those three bright Stars, which constitute his belt, 
being the three Magian kings, who, looking directly across the 
horizon, see his Star in the east, and are come to worship him. 



44 THE devil's pulpit. 

which they do by presenting gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the 
emblematical oblations in all ages, consecrated to the honor of 
the Sun. 

And look ye, sirs ; this is history itself, than which nothing 
that was ever deemed an indubitable record of truth among 
men, was ever more historical. The most ancient chronicles 
of Alexandria attest the existence and universal prevalence of 
this religion in Egypt, for ages before the date of its falsely- 
pretended origin in the era of Augustus and Tiberius. *• To 
this day^^"^ say the writers of that ancient chronicle, " Egypt 
has consecrated the pregnancy of a Virgin, and the nativity of 
her Son, whom they annually present in a cradle to the adora- 
tion of the people ;" and when King Ptolemy (that is 350 
years before our Christian era) demanded of the priests the sig- 
nificancy of this religious ceremooy, they told him that "it was 
mystery that had been taught to their forefathers by a respectable 
prophet." In the name of the Egyption Idol, Serapis, we have 
the radical Zor-Ab. Is. The Sun, the Father, the Fire, ratified 
by the high evidence of the virtuous Emperor Marcus Aurelius, 
that the Bishops of Serapis, were known and recognised under 
the title of Bishops of Christ. 

We have found the self-same story, even in the most ridicu- 
lous minuteness of its circumstances, constituting the basis of 
the legends of the Hindoo God, Chrishna, existing in written 
documents fifteen hundred years before our era ; and we have 
found the whole name itself, both Jesus and Christ, quoted by 
the great astronomer of Arabia, Alboazer, or Abulmazar, as the 
name, which, /o//oi^mo- the most ancient traditions of the Per* 
sians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, of Hermes, and of JEscu- 
lapius, had heen given to the child, which, in the most ancient 
projection of the signs of the Zodiac, was represented as the 
Son of the Virgin, of the month of August ; ^^that child,^^ says 
Abulmazar, <* which some nations call Jesus, but which, in 
Greek, is called Christus.^^^ 

• As old, then, as that first grouping together of the stars into 
imaginary figures, whereby alone their relative positions with re- 



THE devil's pulpit. 45 

Of Jesus, traced to its radical Yes, the name of Bacchus, the 
Sun, the numerical letters of the great solar Cycle, 608, and the 
form, or sign of the consent, and truth, in the Yar of the Dutch, 
the Oui of the French, the Yes of our own country, you are 
heretofore informed. 

The Hindostanee Chreeshna, transformed into the Greek 
Xf)>7arof, signifies merely the Good man : Jesus denoting the 
divine, Christ the human nature, as existing in that great and 
universal personification of the solar fire, Jesus Christ, 

Christ, or Chrest, as a Greek word, derives its mystical sanc- 
tity from the circumstance of its being the universal inscrip- 
tion on tombstones, and sepulchres of the dead, among all 
nations that used the Greek language, and among many which 
used it without knowing its significancy. The simple epitaph 
on each good man's tomb was his name, and the two expres- 
sive words '^pr](TT£, ILaipe ! i. e., good fellow — good-by ! These 
two words, represented sometimes by the initial letters, two 
X-es, or St. Andrew^s Crosses, were a most obvious hieroglyph 
of the two crosses of the equator, by the ecliptic, at the equi- 
noctial points, that of autumn when the Sun dips below, and 
that of spring when he crosses it again from below ; and so is 
said to rise again from the dead.f 

spect to each other could be described ; and as old as that neces- 
sary acting of the human mind, whereby it would attach imaginary 
histories to those imaginary figures — that is, as old as when first the 
first race of men looked up upon the vaulty bosom of the night, and 
said, " See there !'' (as what else could they say) ? " Behold^ I see 
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." So 
old is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The dream 
of the occurrence of any one of its events, or of the existence of any 
one of its personages on earth, is only one among millions of melan- 
choly proofs of what an idiot man is capable of becoming when once 
ne renounces his reason. 

t Hence the name of Chrests and Chrestians, signifying nothing 
mere than good men or good fellows, and bearing no relation to any 



46 THE devil's pulpit. 

Hence, also, the word Chrest or Christ, upon all their 
tombstones, naturally associated itself with the idea of the 
Resurrection, and was hieroglyphical to the same purpose as 
the Latin resugam — "I shall rise again."* Thus the phrase, 
^* Jesus lohich was crucified,'^'' means nothing but the Sun which 
was crossified ; while in all the cabalistical jargon of the epis- 
tles of St. Paul, your observance will perceive that he never 
makes the mistake of confounding the resurrection of Jesus 
with that of Christ. For he can only prove Jesus to be the 
Christ — that is, the Sun, by the fact of his rising again; these 
eternal risings and settings being the proper and essential 
definition of the Sun. 

Thus, sir, I think it must be as clear as the Sun to all who 
would not turn from the Sun, and prefer darkness to light, 
and idiotcy, folly, and faith ; to learning, reason, and philoso- 
phy ; that I have done what I took in hand ; that I have brought 
down such a stream of science upon this stable of Bethlehem, 
as has washed away the accumulated ignorance of barbarous 
ages, and cleansed your hearts and minds from all respect for 
the gospel, as a history, or for those stupid bunglers who have 
mistaken it for a history ; and having once made the mistake, 
would never endure to have their error corrected, or their infor- 
mation extended. 

religious distinctions whatever, was the common cOmpliment of lan- 
guage, and the worshippers of Jupiter and Juno, and of all the rif- 
raf Gods and Goddesses of the Pantheon, were called Christians, and 
were as really so, as those ill-natured bigots who pretended a distinc- 
tion where there was never any difference, and would allow nobody 
to be good fellows but themselves. 

* As you may have read it parodied in our common churchyard 
stave 1 — 

" Go home, dear friends, dry up your tears, 
Here we shall lie till Christ appears ; 
And when he comes, we're sure to have 
A joyful rising from the grave." 



THE devil's pulpit. 47 

As your own experience attests to you to this day, how diffi- 
cult and how daring a thing it must have been in any age for 
the better-informed, the wise, and the discerning few, to attempt 
to stem the tide of popular prejudice, or to say nay to false- 
hoods, however gross, to delusions, however monstrous and 
mischievous: whence once the propagating of those falsehoods, 
and the keeping up of those delusions, has become the source 
of distinction and emolument to a selfish and a wicked priest- 
hood. 

When you see with your own eyes, and witness with your 
own observance, how savage a madness, how cruel and bitter 
a spirit, your own protestant and dissenting clergy, the most 
enlightened of the enlightened, and the most liberal of the 
liberal, as they would be thought to be, do endeavor to excite 
against any man who would attempt to make the world wiser 
than it is convenient for their ignorance that it should be 
when you see the slanderous arts, the mean, the cowardly 
defamations put forth from their lying hoxes^ where they know 
that no man mav answer them — a meanness and a cowardice 
wnicn, m no otner case, would man's notiie nature condescend 
to — all, all, to protect their guilty craft — all to throw bars across 
the path of knowledge — all to evade discussion — all to shirk 
out from that collision of mind with mind, to which I challenge 
them, and which alone can strike forth the sparks of genius 
and light up the day of reason, among men. Were there one 
priest or preacher in all this miserably priest-ridden metropolis, 
only one of the thousands who warn their choused and cheated 
congregations not to go to the Rotunda,* who had dared to 
trust himself or ihem to know what is going on in the Rotunda : 
were there one of the thousands who affect to treat our astro- 
nomical argument with scorn, who could show that he had ever 
trusted himself so much as fairly to look at that argument, I 
would say that man is honest. But such a man is not to b:- 
tound in Israel. 

•The chapel in which these sermons were preached. 



48 THE devil's pulpit. 

The conscious felon shudders not more at the confusion that 
threatens him in an impending cross-examination, than your 
Cnristian clergy shudder at discussion. 

Every other argument against their system has, in some way 
or other, well or ill, been answered — but never, never this. Of 
this, as of the ghost of Banquo, the flagrant demonstration of 
their deep iniquity, they have only said — they only can say — 
" Take any shape but that !" 



fiWD OF THE THREE DISCOURSES ON THE STAR OF BETHLEBEH 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

«*AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT JS."— Allan Cunningham, 

JOHN THE BAPTIST: 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESSES CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOVEMBER 27, 1830. 



*^ In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the Wilderness of 
Judea, and saying, ^ Repent ye ; for the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand J " — Matthew iii. 1, 2. 



John the Baptist ! John the Baptist ! ! How d'ye do, John- 
ny ? Where d'ye come from ? Who are you when you're at 
home? What d'ye mean by making ducks and drakes of the 
people — by sousing them i'the horse-pond? What d'ye mean 
by the kingdom of heaven being at hand ? 

You'd a' told us, I suppose, that the kingdom of heaven was 
in your breeches pocket, had you worn such a superfluous arti- 
cle of dress ! But raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle 
about your loins, is all you care for ** the pomps and vanities of 
this wicked world." By my honor, Johnny, I do admire your 
piety : but I blush for your modesty. 

** In those days came John the Baptist." And what days were 
those ? " Preaching in the Wilderness of Judea.^^ And what 
wilderness was that? 

Aiad if it was a wilderness that he was preaching in, what 
sort of a congregation must he have had, but the squirrels, and 
the rabbits, and the monkeys, and the chimpanzees, and the 
orang-outangs, and the wild beasts, and the wild men of the 

4 



50 THE devil's pulpit. 

woods» and everything that was wild ? As sure tie must hav 
looked wild enough himself, with no shoes and stockings, and 
nothing else but an old mat of camel's hair, tied with a strap 
of leather, round his body: and nothing to eat but wood-lice, 
grubs, and maggots, and locusts, and wild honey ; so that his 
very victuals were wild. And, i'faith ! if his doctrine wasn't 
quite as wild, when he told the wi4d things to repent, "because 
the kingdom of heaven was at hand." — God ! if the kingdom 
of heaven had been at foot, I dare say the wild fellows would 
have been wild enough to have kicked it like a bladder, from 
one end of the wilderness to the other, till they had kicked the 
king out of the kingdom; and so had had a radical reform with 
a vengeance. 

So it was well thought of by Johnny, to cool 'em down a 
little bit, by dipping them i' the water; and when " they began 
to shiver, and they began to shake," they'd most likely begin 
to repent, and bring forth all that Johnny was preaching for, 
I. e. "fruits, meat for repentance." For he must have wanted 
some fruit very badly ; but where the meat was to come from, I 
can not guess. 

Did ye ever hear anything so impious and wicked in all your 
days? It is quite shocking — it sets me all of a twitter. 

MOCK SERMON. 
[Delivered in the style of the Reverend Doctor,) 
And is this the way in which we are to treat the oracles 
uf Omnipotence, the law of everlasting truth, G-od's most 
holy word ? whereby, however lightly we may affect to treat 
it now, our souls will assuredly be judged at the last day, 
and assigned to the eternal happiness of heaven, or to have 
their portion with devils in the everlasting torments of hell- 
&re, according as we shall have believed or disbelieved its 
ix)lemn truths. And is this a subject for levity and ridicule 
.toy brethren? Is a profane joke, an impious sarcasm a mere 
lash of wit, and exhibition of idle buffoonery, to shut our eyes 
igainst the things that make for our eternal peace ; and to 
pervert our souls from the faith of that divine Savior, who 
came to seek and to save that which was lost 1 And of all 



THE devil's pulpit. 51 

persons next to our blessed Savior himself, who would have 
thought that it would have been that holy man, that self 
denying personage, John the Baptist^ that would have been 
fixed on as the hut of profane ridicule ? That John the 
Baptist, who is so distinctly mentioned in the 18th book of the 
Jewish antiquities of Josephus, the 17th chapter of that book, 
where his whole history, and the circumstance of his having 
been beheaded by the younger Herod, is related in such entire 
accordance with the facts detailed in the gospels, that to deny 
or to doubt the reality of his existence, is to outrage all princi- 
ples of evidence, and to fly in the teeth of history, philosophy, 
and reason, as well as of scripture. 

And why should the testimony of Josephus, a Jew, and an 
enemy to the Christian faith, as he is known to have been, so 
clear and explicit, so positive, and full to the proof as it is, of 
the circumstances of the death of John the Baptist, leave us in 
any doubt of the reality and actual occurrence of his preaching 
in the wilderness of Judea, resting as the credit of that occur- 
rence does, on the authority of the inspired word of God ? 
"For if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is 
greater." And that witness is, that this is He, who was sent in 
fulfilment of that prophecy of the evangelical prophet: **Be- 
nold, I send my messenger, which shall prepare thy way before 
^hee: the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for 
our God." 

That this man should enter on his divine embassy, with such 
appearance of humility, mortification, and self-denial, as should 
show that his soul was set on higher objects than the things of 
lime and sense, that salvation was his end, heaven his home, 
and God his shield and his exceeding great reward ; therefore 
came he baptizing with water unto repentance, exhibiting, in 
his own abstemious diet, and unostentatious apparel, the exam- 
pie of the humility he taught : — 

"The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell; 

Kis food, the fruits ; his drink, the crystal well ; 

His life one constant scene of calm repose; 



b2 THE devil's pulpit. 

No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows. 
Still as the sea, ere winds were taught to blow. 
Or moving spirits bade the waters flow ; 
Remote from man, with God he passed his days, 
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure — praise." 

And was this a character to be held up to impious ridicule 
and scorn ? this the man ? this bright model of all that was 
transcendant in goodness — all that was sublime in virtue — all 
that was exalted in moral excellence, to be set up in features 
of caricature and effigy ? and desecrated by a vile buffoonery 
of exhibition, as a but for the hand of Scorn, to point its slow 
unmoving finger at? 

Say, Christians, say, whether shall one be more astonished at 
the impiety of feeling, the immorality of sentiment, the obtuse- 
ness of understanding, or the depravity of heart, of that unhappy 
man who would thus pour contempt on everything that is 
sacred, desecrate everything that is holy, dash the pure cup of a 
Savior's love from his un tasting lip, and wage wild war upon 
the God who made him? Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, 
Gobble ! 

END OF THE MOCK SERMON. 

So, so ! and with such a fetch as this, are we to be put off the 
scent of curiosity, and to go home like good boys and girls, from 
a very fine sermon, and never want to know anything more about 
John the Baptist ? 

How facile is it to be eloquent, where sound will do instead 
of sense. 

How easy to be a very fine preacher in a very fine chapel, 
with very fine fools to preach to. And where, when the minister 
happens to know no more about John the Baptist than the 
pulpit, the congregation have no more wish to know anything 
about him, than the pews. 

But here, I trust, we are curious creatures ; and though 
Abomolique, with his blue beard, may lock up his blue chamber, 
and guard it with ten thousand blue devils, we'll not be 
frightened from our criticism— we'll have a peep into it, though 
hell itself should gape, and cry, " Forbear !" We have the 



THE devil's pulpit. 53 

word, the form of conjuration, the key of the mystery ; I will 
use it now. John the Baptist, I conjure thee, by God, that thou 
appear — appear — appear ! 

" Be'st thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, 

Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell; 

Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 

Thou comest in such a questionable shape, 

That I will speak to thee.'' 

The pretended distinctive testimony of the historian Jose- 
phus to the real existence of John the Baptist, vanishes in a 
moment before the internal evidence of his derivation of the 
story, from the very legends from which it has passed into our 
gospels. The authority is, therefore, no more a distinctive or 
additional one than an additional copy of the New Testa- 
ment would be an additional authority. Josephus himself, 
evidently deriving the story from the Chaldean Berosus, who 
describes an amphibious animal, under the very name of 
Oannes, half a man and half a fish, who came out of the Red 
Sea, and appeared in the neighborhood of Babylon, in the 
reign of Alorus, the first Chaldean king : who preached to the 
first race of men all day, and every night dipped back again into 
his native element, the sea^ — and thus acquired the name of 
John the Dipper. 

The authority, then, is one and the self-same in both : and 
we are thrown back on the unsupported and unabetted claims 
of the gospel story, merely, for all that can be adduced for the 
existence of such a person as John the Baptist. 

Now, if it shall appear from the unsophisticated, unstrained 
text of sacred writ, taken in the most literal, obvious, first sense 
and common^sense meaning of what is called the original 
Greek, that no such person as John the Baptist ever had a real 
existence : that the evangelists themselves (whoever they were) 
never meant a real personage, nor had reference to any events 
that ever happened upon earth : 

If it shall turn out that I can show you what it was that they 



' Maurice's History of Hindostan, vol. i., p. 418. 



54 THE devil's pulpit. 

really did mean, and whence it was that that, their real mean- 
ing, was derived : I shall stand entitled to your verdict, as 
triumphing in the challenge which I have given to all the 
preachers of the gospel in this metropolis ; in that I charge 
them with being deceivers of the people: inasmuch as that they 
are dunces, and I am not one ; they do not know the meaning of 
what they preach, and I do. 

Now, then, to our business : now to the proof of this. Give 
me but the measure of attention which you owe to learning, 
which you owe to your own character as rational beings, and 
let not Christian savages invade the rights of man. And so 
withhold from me your conviction as long as you possibly can 
do so. I will not woo it from your courtesy, nor win it from 
your favor , but I will make it mine, by right of conquest. 

"7;i those days came John the Baptist.'*^ Mark, first, the in- 
dication of an infinite indefiniteness and remoteness of time ; " in 
those days ;'*'^ Yes! there were giants in those days; "and it 
came to pass in those days," as St. Luke has it. Such is pre- 
cisely the form of beginning the most avowed and declared stories 
of witches, ghosts, or hobgoblins. " Once upon a time ;" in 
those days — that is not in those years, in those months, or in the 
reign of any prince that ever reigned upon earth. But in the 
days of Herod the King — as Christ is represented, in the 12th 
chapter of this Gospel, as saying, ^^ From the days of John 
the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffer eth violence, 
and the violent take it hy forced Where the phrase of, ^^from 
the days of John the Baptist,'*'' if it had any chronological refer- 
ence, could refer only to an infinitely remote antiquity, and 
be synonymous only^with such a sense as, from the beginning 
of the luorld, or from time immemorial, or, as I shall show you, 
that from the days of John the Baptist — that is, from the 24th 
and 25th of June, which most literally are, the days of John the 
Baptist, which you will find in the tropic of Cancer, from that 
point downward, the kingdom of heaven does suffer violence. 
The days having reached the longest, at the 21st of June, the 
reign of the tender Lamb of March, the harmless Bullock of 
April, and the pretty children of May, is no more; but the 



THE devil's pulpit. 55 

violent Lion of July, the Snake in full chase after the Virgin 
of August, the hideous Python, right over the Scales of 
September, the Worm that never dieth, of October, the Blue 
Devil of November, and all the other Sons of Violence, do 
take the kingdom of heaven by force ; they seem to pull the 
Sun from his attitude lower and lower, till "dread Wintei 
spreads his latest gloom, and reigns tremendous o'er the con- 
quered year." You will observe, too, that this John the 
Baptist and his baptism, could by no possibility be brought 
within the associations of idea of any nation or people who 
had been educated under such institutions as those ascribed to 
Moses. They could not have even imagined such an imagina- 
tion as that of rendering themselves acceptable to the God of 
Moses, by setting aside the peculiarly Mosaic institution, and 
substituting the innocent folly of baptism. A John Baptist 
could not possibly have been a Jew, had there ever been such 
a nation as that of the Jews : which I shall hereafter show you, 
to an absolute demonstration, that there never was: the name 
JeivSy^ Hebrews f Israelites — like that of Freemasons among 
ourselves — designating, and meaning only those fanatics, of 
whatever nation they might be, who had been initiated and 
^^ passed over^^^ or ** wjt?" to the highest rank in the Greater 
Mysteries of Eleusis, in Greece, or those of Isis, in Egypt ; and 
who considered themselves, as our Freemasons at this day do, 
as " a peculiar people, a Holy Nation," scattered throughout 
the world. 

Observe again. "In those days came John the Baptist ;" but 
the Greek text has not the word that could be fairly translated 
came* It is not rjxdey but Trapayiverai, which is an astronomical 
word, signifying in Latin adfuit — that is, he became present — 
he made his appearance. 

Now, It IS of the more consequence that no liberty should be 



• This origin of the Jews agrees with the assumption of Moses in 
explaining the mysteries or teaching the truth to the common people, 
by denouncing idolatry. Jews^ mean a learned body. — En. 



56 THE BEVIL^S PULPIT. 

taken with the sacred text, but that we should adhere to the 
most severe literality of it, as I invariably do ; come what will 
on't, for these twelve good reasons : — 

1 St. Because it is not said, and appears not to have been known 
to this evangelist, where John the Baptist came from. He had 
as good a right to tumble down from the moon as the other had 
to tumble up again ; as he was certainly sent to prepare the way 
of the Lord, and to make his path straight. 

2d. Because his appearance was not that of a human being. 
You would not have taken him for a human being, had you 
seen himself. 

3d. Because his food was not such as could have sustained 
the life of any human being: and whether he came from heaven 
or from hell, and supposing his meat was nothing else but locusts 
and wild honey, he must have lived in a continual purgatory. 

4th. Because his dress wasn't decent. 

5th. Because they said of him that he had a devil — that is, 
that the devil was in him. 

6th. Because Jesus himself said of him, that he came neither 
eating or drinking ; and sure, if he could live without eating and 
drinking, the devil was in him. 

7th. Because Herod the Tetrarch said of him-— that this is 
John the Baptist, whom I beheaded ; he is risen from the dead, 
and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. 

8th. Because Christ himself said— and sure it is very hard 
when Christians won't take the word of their own Savior, and 
treat us as infidels for showing him more respect than they do — 
Christ has said, and never said he anything more positively 
and solemnly — that this John the Baptist, as they callea him, 
really was none other than the prophet Elijah come again, wno, 
900 years before, had been carried up into heaven in a chariot 
of fire, with norses of fire. Which accounts for his keeping so 
near the water's edge, in order that if the chariot of fire, and 
horses of fire, should be after him again, he might be reaay to 
duck under, and so give those red-hot race-horses a cnance to 
cool their mettle ere they could catch him. 'Tis strange, me- 
thinks, that one who had certainly been to heaven once, should 



THE devil's pulpit. 57 

take such pains to show us, that, rather than go back again, he'd 
be ready to drown himself. 

9th. Because St. Luke says — that he was in the deserts until 
the day of his showing unto Israel, where certain it is, that no 
man, woman, or child, could possibly live. 

10. Because the same St. Luke explicitly says, that he grew 
and waxed strong in spirit, eKparinro Trvevixan — that is, most literal- 
ly, he lived upon the wind. 

11th. Because, when Miss Herodias, the boarding-school 
young lady at the lord mayor's ball, had danced herself into 
an ungenteel flusteration, and wanted something to drink, she 
said, "Bring me here John Baptist's head in a charger," and 
she and her mother drank it off between 'em. 'Twas monstrous 
cruel of them to serve John Baptist so. But I belieVe John 
Barleycorn gets served every day quite as cruelly, and if they'd 
bring us his head in a charger, there are very few of us who 
wouldn't be ready to commit quite as bloody execution on him. 
And sure it but ill becomes them, who eat and drink the body 
and blood of Christ, to turn up their noses at a pint of John the 
Baptist. 

12th. Because, when the question was fairly put to him, and 
demanded as fair and explicit an answer — who art thou ? and 
he confessed and denied not, but confessed I am not the Christ. 
And they asked him — what then art thou, Elias ? And he saith, 
I am not. God forgive him for giving the He so plumply to our 
blessed Savior, who positively declared that he was. Art thou 
that prophet? And he answered, wo. Then said they, who art 
thou ? What say'st thou of thyself? He said, I am the Voice ! 
Yes ; he was the voice — Vox, et prcBterea nihil — a voice, and 
nothing but a voice. So now the mystery begins to clear up a 
bit. As Jesus is expressly called the Word, and John the Voice, 
the devil's in't if the voice and the word are not first cousins, all 
the world over. 

And now we can account for his being so fond of wild-honey- 
For the doctors say that that's the finest thing in the world for 
the voice. And sure, sirs, it will never do for Christians to 
accuse me of levity and sarcasm for speaking of a voice with- 



58 THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

out a body, where their whole system is founded upon so very 
near a relation to the Voice without a body, as is their Divine 
Logos, the Word, without a meaning. 

A barbarous people — and never be it forgotten that all the 
religion in the world is derived to us from barbarians and 
savages — could sincerely believe that they had something like 
sensible evidence of the real existence of a voice without a body, 
when the echo of the priest's voice, while the priest himself re- 
mained unseen, peeled through the wildernesses, and bowery 
alcoves of the gods, on their affrighted ear. 

And as the priests in all ages and countries were well aware 
that 'twas the very secret life and charter of their craft to let 
nobody speak but themselves, the echo of their voice passed for 
the Deity himself. And thus, through both our Old and New 
Testaments, you will find that God, who is often enough spoken 
of as the Invisible God, is never once spoken of as an Inaudible 
God. He can not be seen, but he can always be heard. He has 
no body, parts, or passions, only he has the lungs of Stentor him- 
self. He does send forth his voice ; yea, and that a mighty voice. 
For these twelve reasons, then, added to the reason which runs 
through them all, the reason of common-sense and common 
honesty and truth, do I advocate, and myself invariably adopt, 
the severest literality of translation, not warping a syllable or 
an accent, either to the right or left, on one side or the other, 
for any sense whatever. I follow the throw-up of the very letter, 
whether it may seem to make sense or nonsense, whether it lead 
me to heaven, or t'other place. 

It is not, then, the correct reading, that John the Baptist came 
preaching in the wilderness; but that he appeared — the term is 
not historical, but astronomical. He was in the deserts, as Luke 
has it ; but what brought him there ? — you must luke again be- 
fore you'll guess at it. He was in the deserts until the day of 
his showing unto Israel. 

It is not in the power of language to put an astronomical 
enigma more astronomically, or for the solution of such an 
enigma to be more distinct than this — the constellation called 
John the Baptist is in the wilderness — that is, quite lost and 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 59 

irnperceivable to the eye, in the general wildness, and jumble 
of confusion which the starry heavens present to the illiterate 
and unscientific eye, which can make neither head nor tail of 
them ; but falling into distinct method, and most beautiful 
analogies, as soon as you shall have acquired the art of grouping 
them into the figures which they represent, and looking for them 
in the seasons of the year, when they appear above the horizon : 
then John is no longer in the wilderness, but you will distinctly 
recognise him in the Zodiac, at the season of his showing unto 
Israel, when he appears as the genius of the month Johnuary — 
Aquarius, the water-bearer, who comes baptizing with water, 
6(? jxeravoiav, to repentance^ says our English rendering, but to 
animadversion^ is the meaning — that is to change of mind — 
this is, to put the mind up to the trick on't, that this is not 
history, but science. In the acquisition of which, you will be 
able, very soon, to solve every problem of the gospel ; to read 
off from the face of heaven the bright interpretation of its dark 
sayings ; to untangle all its confused mysteries ; and, in the proud 
possession of the kernel of science, you will trample its husks 
and shells under your feet, with a joy and liberty of heart which 
science only can give. With this clue of the whole science in 
our hand, let us catechize this John the Baptist. 

Now, my boy ! What is your name ? — John. 

Who gave you that name? — Why, your old friend the Angel 
Gabriel, when he appeared to my daddy the parson, Zacharias, 
and said, " Fear not, Zachee, for thy wife Elizabeth shall bear 
thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John." But his 
mother's neighbors and cousins said unto her, *' There is none 
of thy kindred that is called by this name."^'^ And they said, 



• And what is the meaning of that name, John, by which none of 
your kindred race or nation had ever been called before, iMawnq ? It 
discovers to us the three grand Ammonian radicals — I — ON", ES, the 
Sun, the Being, the Fire ; the name of God, the Sun — that is, of the 
Son in the sign of Aquarius, who pours his stream of water into the 
mouth of the great Southern Fish : and hence, becnme Jonas, swal- 
lowed by the fish, and the fish-God, Cannes, of the Clialdeans, the 
Matsya Avatar, or first incarnation of Veeshnu, in the form of a fish, 
ol India, the Jonas of the Phoenicians, the Xioawni of the Greeks, the 



60 THE devil's pulpit. 

as well they might, **What manner of child shall this be?" 
And I should have been quite as much pestered to think what 
manner of woman old Betsy, his mother, was, had not the 
holy oracles of God, in the 16th chapter of the gospel according 
to St. JameSf^ informed me, that Elizabeth, hearing that hei 
son John was about to be searched for, took him and went up 
into the mountains, and seeing a mountain that she took a par- 
ticular liking to, she groaned within herself, and said, "0 
Mountain of the Lord, receive the mother with the child." 
And immediately the mountain, being, I dare say, pretty sharp 
set, opened his mouth, and swallowed the old woman and the 
boy both at a bounce. 

The old woman was completely digested: and nothing more 
should we have heard of John the Baptist, but that it pleased 
Almighty God that it should be so ; the mountain was seized 
cith labor-pangs, and St. John the Baptist was born again. 

The mere ceremony of b&ptism would never insure om 
Salvation, unless it be attended, as it was in the case of the 
iaptist himself, with a death unto sin, and a new birth unto 
righteousness ; to which wonderful fact our holy church alludes 
in her incantation for the 24th of June, which is the festival of 
the nativity of John the Baptist. " Almighty God, by whose 
providence thy servant, John Baptist, was wonderfully born," 
and sent to prepare the way of thy Son, our Savior, by preach- 
ing of repentance. 

Now, sirs, for the solution of this Repentance ! What does 
it mean ? I am sure that your clergy and preachers of the 
gospel, either don't know, and so are the dunces and ignora- 
muses which I suspect them of being ; or, if they do, they are 
the very fiends of imposture and deceit — that palter with you 
in a double sense, keeping the word of promise to your ear, 
to break it to your hope — Repentance, Meravoia, entire change 
of mind — that is, a coming to understand things in a wholly 
different way, the very reverse and direct contrary in every 
respect from the notions you had imbibed from your stupid 
nurses and your lying priests. MeTavoeire nyyiKt yap n Bao-tXcta 
'0)1/ upavwv, are the words of an astronomical Hierophant, deliv- 
ered as the prologue to a tragedy, of which the imagined scene 
was the heavenly Jerusalem, of which the characters were, the 
personified genii of the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; of which 
the plot was, the representation of all the great phenomena of 

Janus, the first of the Great Gods of the Romans, and xne January, 
the first of the Great Months of the whole world. f 

* Protevangetion — Apocryphal Gospel. 

t It has become the Saint Januarius of the Catholics. — Ed. 



THE devil's pulpit. 61 

nature, in the form of speeches in character, and the ideal 
history of the birth, parentage, and education, trial, conviction, 
execution, last dying speech and confession, of the Sun, who 
was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, 
and all the rest on't. Of which tragedy, the prologue is spoken 
by a fellow dressed up after the fashion of Jack Frost, with a 
pitcher of water under his arm, in camel's hair, with a leathern 
girdle round his loins. The prologue being the words of our 
text, METavoeiTE — that is, animadvert ye, turn your minds now to 
ihe astronomical signification, "-^for the Kingdom of Heaven is 
at hand'''* — that is, this performance, which I have the honor of 
announcing to you, is no matter of human history or of real oc- 
currence upon earth, but it is the kingdom of heaven in panto- 
mime ; of which, I, Jack Waterstone, am come to admonish 
you ; and my cousin, who will perform the character of Jesus 
Christ, will, I hope, go through the dying scene, with such effect 
as to insure your future patronage. His benefit being fixed for 
the 25th of December, and mine for the 24th of June. 

And sure enough, sirs, if you turn to the calendar in your 
prayer-books, or to your almanacs, you will find that the church 
really has fixed the festival of the nativity of John the Baptist 
on the 24th of June ; from which day, downward to the decline 
of the year, the days grow continually shorter and shorter ; 
while, from the 25th of December upward, they grow longer 
and longer, and you have thus the key to that conundrum in the 
1st of St. John's gospel, where the infant Baptist, as the Genius 
of the 24th of June, says of his cousin, the Infant Jesus, the 
Genius of the 25th of December, **He must increase, but I 
must decrease." And he actually does decrease, till nine weeks 
and three days after — that is, the 29th of August, he gets his 
head cut off by the line of the horizon ; and that day our 
church^has fixed, as the festival of the beheading of John the 
Baptist.^ 

And therefore, with most mythological accuracy, is the 
birthday of John the Baptist fixed so near the Sun's highest 
point of ascension, because that point really is, not merely 
figuratively, but physically, the mountain of the Lord ; and 



* John the Baptist is beheaded on the 29th of August, because, at 
the fourteenth hour and a half of that day, the bright Star of Aquarius 
rises in the calender of Ptolemy, while the rest of his body is below ; 
and as the direct adversary of Aquarius is Leo, whom I have shown 
to be none other than King Herod : so King Herod, every 30th of 
August, at half after two in the morning, annually repeats the opera* 
lion, of cutting off John Baptist's head. 



62 THE devil's pulpit. 

John the Baptist, as we have seen, was, by his second birth, 
the son of that self-same mountain. Mountains in all ages, 
not merely figuratively, but physically, being famous for giving 
birth to echoes ; and what was John the Baptist but an echo ? 
— a voice, and nothing but a voice, as we read in the 40th of 
Isaiah. The voice said, cry; and he said, what shall I cry? 
But I say. You may cry what you please ; but I shall cry, 
it^s no go ! 

But observe, I pray ye, the great enucleation. The character 
of priests, and of the priests of all religions, has ever been the 
same. From the days of remotest ages, the priests usurped to 
themselves the sole and exclusive right of addressing public 
assemblies, and were the first theatrical performers. A mo- 
nopoly, which you do see with your own eyes, they would, if they 
could, still keep up : the most fanatical and evangelical of them 
not blushing to preach against theatrical entertainments, and 
to warn their hearers not to go to any other playhouses, but 
their own. 

Hence the first forms of religion were perfectly theatrical. 
The first theatrical performances, were tragedies, and the first 
tragedy, was the gospel. The first performers, or tragedians, 
were called viroKpirai, or Hypocrites — that is, persons acting under 
a mask, and having an under-sense and different understanding 
to themselves^ of the shows they exhibited to the people. 

Thus all our priests to this day are hypocrites, and all the 
religion in the world is nothing but hypocrisy. Of this fact, you 
find the gospel itself bear witness, in that, Christ, the manager 
of the strolling company, repeatedly addresses the chief priests 
and preachers of his gospel, by their appropriate title: ye hypo- 
crites — that is, ye players, or gentlemen of the buskin. The 
first plot, or story of the tragedy, from which its name Tpays O^r? 
the ode, or incantation of the Goat, is derived, was precisely 
what our gospel is found to be — an allegorical pantomime of the 
Sun's annual passage through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, 
by those who reckoned the year to begin from the winter solstice, 
when the Sun is in the sign of the Goat. While those who 
reckoned the year as beginning at the Vernal Equinox; when 
the Sun crosses the line of the Equator, and appears in the sign 
of the Lamb, whose ancient Ammonian name was Gad, which 
has become our English, God, exhibited the same rpaycoSn — 
tragedy, or spell of the Goat, under the varied name, but not 
varied significancy of the Gad's-spell, or God's-spell — that is, the 
ode, or incantation of the Ram. The oldest written tragedy 
which has come down to us, the Prometheus, Desmotes of 
-3ischylus, admitted to have been acted in the theatres of Greece, 
five hundred years before our Christian era, presents us with 



THE devil's pulpit. 63 

precisely the same story — the story of a crucified G-od, and opens 
with a precisely similar first scene. Scene, the wilderness^ 
enter the Demons of Force and Strength : to them ; Mercury 
the messenger and forerunner of Jove : — 

Qavog jxcv eg vriKtipov rjKOjxev rreSov 
TiKvOrjv eg oifxoi/ eg aPporov eprjfxiav. 

At length, then, to the wide world's extreme hounds, 
To Scythia are we come — those pathless wilds, 
Where human footstep never marked the ground. 

But where does our poor Johnny of the gospel, pick us his 
locusts and wild honey in " those pathless wilds, where human 
footsteps never marked the ground?" Why, as thus, sirs: in 
the ancient Arabic constructions of the Zodiac, the Lion of 
July was depicted with a Bee, which the Arabs ingeniously 
call the honey-fly, flying into his mouth : and John has to do 
m the New Covenant, what his predecessor, Samson, had done 
in the Old, to kill — that is, to overcome, or come over, the Lion* 
And so to take the very victuals out of his mouth, which gives 
us the real solution of Samson's famous riddle: ''Out of the 
eater came forth meaty and out of the strong came forth sweet' 
ness.''^ So there was the honey for him ; and sure I need not 
explain to you how necessarily the honey that was torn out of 
the throat of a wild beast would be — very, very wild honey: 
and there is the locust enough for him, in the Scorpion of 
October. 

And why are all the Twelve Apostles spoken of as twelve 
poor fishermen ? — a scaly set of 'em, I admit. But as you see, 
Aries is the first, the Fishes is the twelfth of them ; and they are 
all of them eternally running after the loaves and fishes, than 
which nothing can be more apostolical. And why is it, that " all 
that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suff'er persecution" ? 
But because, as you see, they are all of them eternally running 
after one another ; and no sooner shall you see one of them get- 
ting a little bit up in the world, but you shall observe another 
rising in the horizon immediately under him, ready to give him 
a somerset from his highest point of elevation, and pitch him 
to the devii. 

And here, sirs, have we the solution of that astronomical 
enigma, which has so puzzled the chuckle-headed critics upon 
sacred writ, who are called commentators ; but whose brains, 
for all the wit that was ever in them, might as well have been 
made of common potatoes. 

** Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the 
Sun be darkened, and the Moon shall not give her light, and the 
Stars shall fall from Heaven, and the powers of the Heavens 



64 THE devil's pulpit. 

shall be shaken." A catastrophe which we actually witness at 
this day, as the natural result of the tribulation, not of any 
persons that exist, or ever did exist, on earth ; but the tribula- 
tion of those daysj i» e., the days have been persecuting one 
another, so that our Sun is darkened ; scarce a moonlight night 
or twinkling star appears, to make us amends for the chill, foggy 
day; and the very power of the heavens to fertilize our earth 
again, seems to be brought in doubt. But ^* immediately after, 
ihe days shall be shortened," as on the 21st of December, they 
»hall have reached the shortest; *Mhen shall appear the sign 
of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power 
and great brightness." As there you see, immediately after, 
the shortest day, emerges the constellation of the Water-bearer, 
who is the Son of man, the baptist of the Zodiac, with his sharp 
frosts eating up the grubs, and larva of insects that might be 
fatal to incipient vegetation, and pledging to our grateful faith 
the pleasing hope, that though for a season 

^' Grim horror round our cottage reign. 
Yet Spring will come, and Nature smile again.^' 

And sure, I may say, in the same sense as it was said by the 
astrologue of the gospel, " there be some standing here that shall 
not taste of death until all these things be fulfilled." — " Nay," 
he adds, with peculiar emphasis, "verily, I say unto you, this 
generation shall not pass away until all these things be done." 
But done, such things never were, nor could have been in any 
other than that astronomical sense, in which they are done every 
year of our lives. Which sense they who reject, will find that 
they have as great miracles to work, to save their Savior, as ever 
their Savior wrought, to save them. 



E\^ Ot THE DISCOURSE ON JOHN THE BXPTTST, 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

''AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— Allan Cunningham. 

RAISING THE DEVIL! 

AN ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON THE TEMPTATION 
OF CHRIST. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOVEMBER 27, 1830. 



^^ Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness^ to be 
tempted of the DeviW — Matthew iv. 1. 



The devil he was ! the devil ! and, says our holy church, 
" Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand 
the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil ; and with 
pure hearts and minds to follow thee, the only God, through 
Jesus Christ, our Lord Ammon:'*^ and twice in her holy litany 
— ^^from the crafts and assaults of the devil, good Lord deliver 
us ;" and ^^from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, good Lord deliver us/' 

So serious a bit of business — so right earnest a sort of an 
affair — so real and so formidable a personage, have we all been 
catechized to believe *' our ghostly enemy^^ to be. But don't 
be frightened, my brethren ; don't meet trouble half way. For 
it may comfort ye to know, as very soon ye shall know, that I 
have the honor of being somewhat better acquainted with his 
diabolical majesty than any public teacher or professor of the 
diabolical art in this metropolis. My credentials have been 
received at court; my proportion has been duly gazetted ; my 
titles are indisputable : I have been literally hunted out of the 

5 



66 THE devil's pulpit. 

concealment, which my modesty would have preferred, and 
must not now sink under the weight of so many blushing 
honors, by squeamishly denying myself to be, e'en, as their 
great wisdoms would have it so, archbishop of Pandemonium, 
keeper of the royal conscience to his majesty, the devil, and 
primate of all helL But, " since they would buckle fortune 
on my back" — to bear her burthen, whether I would or not" — 
"Satan doth know, as you may partly see," — "how far I was 
from the desire of this." Since, then, I am in office, put on me 
thus reluctantly, I trust I shall not sink in your good opinion, 
from my zeal and diligence to serve my master faithfully. And, 
sirs, if gratitude to God be the first virtue that can adorn the 
character of a Christian, the first virtue that can adorn the 
character of one favored and honored as I am, must be gratis 
tude to the devil. And sure, sirs, it is not unreasonable that I 
should call upon you as I do, on behalf of " him, whose I am, 
and whom I serve," to give the devil his due. For, let me tell 
you, my good Christian hearers, that fair play'^s a jewel, and 
will answer best in the long reckoning, either with my master, 
or with yours. You need not make the devil blacker than he 
is: nobody knows what friends they may come to need. And 
I must tell ye honestly, that if 'twere the will of my royal 
master to fetch you to our empire, it isn't lamb's blood nor holy 
water that could save you. And in such a case, a friend who 
might speak a good word for you at court, is not to be despised. 
But ay, say ye! God is stronger than the devil. And are 
you sure of that ? Ask the Jew in the garden of Gethsemane: 
does lama sahachthani, sound to thee, like the cry of them who 
shout for the victory? Then write this posy on the ring of thy 
remembrance : — 

^' Jockey of Norfolk, be not thou too bold, 
Jesus thy Master was bought and sold.'' 

And is it for the pimps and parasites of Godhead to call them- 
selves ministers of the gospel of peace, and to pretend that to 
them is committed the word of reconciliation, canting out, with 



THE DEVIL'S rULPlT. 67 

their superfluous nonsense, " be ye reconciled to God," J^hile 
they deny my better title to be considered as a minister of 
reconciliation ; when I say — Be ye reconciled to the devil ; ye 
never had a quarrel with the other fellow. But my master has 
been treated with the utmost indignity. Revile not him, against 
whom even the archangel Michael, when he disputed about the 
body of Moses, durst not bring a railing accusation. No, he 
durst not — for the best feather in his archangelic wings, he durst 
not — or my great master would, like an eagle in a dovecote, 
have trussed him for his infernal spit, and cast him down to our 
great kitchen fire. Revile not him, whom your own scriptures 
expressly acknowledge to be the God of this world. And whom 
snould this world worship, but the God of this world ? " the 
spirit which now ruleth in the children of disobedience f' and 
I can tell you of the children of disobedience, that there's a 
devilish large family of 'em. But had ye seen my master's 
royal court, as I have seen it, and can show it you, how would 
your admiration teach ye to scorn the state and pomp of earthly 
sovereigns, where — 

"High on a throne of royal state, which far 
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind ; 
Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand, 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, 
Satan exalted sat. 'E'en he 
Who led the embattled Seraphim to arms, 
Under his conduct, and in dreadful deeps, 
Fearless, endangered heaven's perpetual king, 
And shook his throne : what, tho' the field was lost, 
All was not lost — the unconquerable will. 
And study of revenge, immortal hate. 
And courage never to submit nor yield ; 
And what is more, not to be overcome. 
This glory never could his wrath or might 
Extort from t*5.'' 

1 enter thus in medias res, into the midst of the subject at 
once, because so does the text I treat ; where you should observe 



68 THE devil's pulpit. 

a fact, which should never escape your critical remembrance, 
thai the devil, where he is first mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment — for he is never once mentioned by that name, in the 
singular number, in the old — is introduced to us as an abso- 
lutely old acquaintance, with a familiarity as gross as if the 
evangelist had calculated that the idea of the devil^would come 
as natural to us, as folly to a fool ; as if we should not be aston- 
ished, should not want to know who the devil was, but be ready 
at once to accost him, as our country cousin, with a — Ah ! 
how d'^ye do, devil ; you come to town? How did ye leave our 
friends in the low countries ? Or, as if the devil himself 
needed no further introduction to us, than at once to bounce in 
upon us, like Paul Pry, with his *'I hope I don't intrude. 
Know ye not me — not to know me, argues yourselves unknown." 
A proof this, than which imagination could conceive no clearer, 
that the gospel has no claim to be called a revelation ; that it 
has no character of originality: no feature of anything that was 
new to the ideas of men ; that it was not written, and by no 
possibility could have been written, till as many ages as you 
please, after all the follies and superstitions of which it treats, 
were deeply and ineradicably rooted in men's minds, and their 
priests had thoroughly played the devil with them. Faith may 
dream what it will of the originality of these writings; but this 
is internal evidence, that they could not possibly be original. 
Written whenever they were, the story was up before. If I 
were to name an evidence stronger than any other of the ne- 
cessarily demoralizing, depraving, and vitiating tendency of this 
devilish gospel, I would point to its soul-debasing, honor-killing 
influence on the minds of those who call themselves unitarian 
Christians, and free-thinking Christians, who are for pretending 
to be Christians still, after finding out that the devil, upon whom 
the whole Christian doctrine is entirely founded, is a purely 
imaginary being ; that, in reality, there is no devil ; that there 
never was any ; and that all the positive declarations of scrip- 
ture, that seem to speak of the existence of such a personage, 
are allegorical, metaphorical, anagogical, oratorical, rhapsodical, 
categorical, and all the other ory-goricals, that mean, in plain 



THE devil's pulpit. 69 

English, they are downright lies. But there is no part of the 
gospel story related with greater appearance of historical truth 
and narrative simplicity than this of the temptation of Christ. 
The pretence then, that it occurred only in a vision ; all this 
appearance of historical truth and narrative simplicity, not- 
withstanding, is a pretence, that when advanced by men who 
profess and*all themselves Christians, only serves to show what 
unprincipled and dishonest men their Christianity has made of 
them. 

For sure, sirs, to maintain that this portion of the gospel was 
visionary, while any other part of it was real, is nothing more 
nor less than to make it historical or visionary, at your own 
option — to make of it a nose of wax, and mould it to the fashion 
of your fancy. 

The holy church, throughout all the world, has ever received 
the temptation of Christ, as as real an event (and I am sure it is 
so) as his crucifixion, and so much more important than that, 
ihat while it requires us to keep but one day's fast in com- 
memoration of his death, it enjoins a forty-days' abstinence in 
commemoration of his temptation : and would have us expect 
our eternal salvation, not more from the merit of his precious 
death and burial, or from his glorious resurrection and ascen- 
sion, than from his haptUm, fasting, and temptation. As in the 
form of incantation, for the first Sunday in Lent, are these words : 
"0 Lord, who, for our sakes, did fast forty days and forty 
nights ;" and ^^when he had fasted forty days and forty nights,^ 
says our text, " he was afterward an hungered.^"* But sure, that 
was a miracle that any of us could have beaten ; for if you or 1 had 
fasted twice as long, we should not have been afterward hungry : 
we could have kept it up to all eternity. 

But observe, I pray (what Christians never observe) the 
strict letter of the text, to the very letter of it, and we shall 
see the wonders it evolves. " Then was Jesus led up of the 
spirit into the wilderness." Then ! why when ? There can be 
no sense in then, but as it has a reference to a when ; and that 
when, you will find was, immediately after John the Baptist 
(whose astronomical characteristics I have lately so fully ex- 



70 THE devil's pulpit. 

plained) had poured his water upon him, and " Lo the heavens 
were opened unto him!" Then, when he had been baptized, 
when he had been born of water and of the spirit, when he had 
the witness of God's spirit with his spirit, that he was a truly 
regenerate person ; then, and not till then, was he full ripe for 
the devil. 

And observe again, my master hasn't to go straggling about 
to fetch his pupils. The Holy Ghost brings 'em to him ; Jesus 
was led by the spirit — whether he was led by the hand, like 
St. Paul, or lugged by the ear, like Ezekiel, or like all other 
good Christians, led by the nose — the note for our observance 
is — that he was led up into the wilderness, av^x^^ — up; why 
not Karrjxdr] — dowTi into the wilderness ? Where was this wilder- 
ness, that the phrase should always be up into the wilderness ; 
and, as St. Mark's gospel has it, ''he was with the wild beasts.''^ 
And what wild beasts were they, which were with him, up in 
the wilderness ? Anon, will I show you the whole menagerie. 
** And when the tempter came to him'*'' — that is, more astronomi- 
cally, when he came to the tempter — that is, to my master — 
for he is a very tempting gentleman, I assure you. My master 
called on him for something like Christian evidence, and gave 
him the fairest and most honorable challenge, to make good 
his pretensions. " Will God suffer his son to be hungry ?" — 
"If thou beest the son of God, command that these stones be 
made bread." But he could command no such thing, and so 
shirks us off with a methodist-parson text of scripture. ''It is 
written^ Man shall not live hy hread alone, hut hy every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,^^ 

So you see. Christian, how soon my master could make your 
master eat his words. Then the devil taketh him up into the 
holy city. " The holy city,^^ where is that ? Observe ye, 
everything that is holy is devilish: it belongs to my master — 
the temple itself is his. He setteth Jesus on a pinnacle of it, 
and willing to try whether he dared work a disinterested 
miracle, he saith unto him, " If thou be the son of God, cast 
thyself down ; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge 
concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest 



THE devil's pulpit. 71 

at any time thou dash thy foot against a stoned But there ])oor 
Jesus was content to sit, till my good master, perceiving from 
the nonsense he was talking, that his brain was beginning to 
swim, in pity to his danger, took him down, and saved your 
Savior. What should have hindered, sirs; had my dread ''' 
sovereign been the malignant being ye have been scandalously 
taught to think him, and had feared a rival in the Galilean' 
boy, but that he should have seized the young usurper by the! 
nape of the neck, with the gripe of Hercules on Antaeus, and 
dashed him off with a " Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee 
thither .?" 

But was it so? No, nothing the like of it. And with your 
Christian justice, as if to show (what is indeed the truth) that 
a thorough Christian never knew what justice meant, you have 
charged my sovereign lord with every vice that you could 
think of, while you can not prove against him a single im- 
perfection. Is he the jealous God that would visit the sins of 
the fathers upon the children? Is he the child-killer? Must 
he have bloodly sacrifices to propitiate his own irritable tem- 
per ? No! with loving-kindness not to be surpassed, with 
generosity not to be equalled, he takes me his hungry pupil, 
and, as Milton (who was certainly inspired, if ever man was) 
expressly assures us, set before him a banquet, compared to 
which, the intended feast at Guildhall, would have been but a 
banyan day. 

" A table richy spread in regal mode, 
With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort, 
And savor, fowl, and game. 
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled. 

All fish from sea or shore, 
Freshlet or purling brook, of shell or fin, 
And exquisitest name, for which was drained 
Pontus and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast : 
And at a stately side-board by, the wine, 
That fragrant smell diffused, in order stood, 
With fruits and flowers from Amalthea's horn; 



72 THE devil's PULriT. 

And ladies of the Hesperides, more fair 

Than thought could think, or love could wish them fair." 

"This was no dream," says Milton; while our own most 
distinguished bishop of London has translated, from the 
Greek of Prodicus, the words of the temper, which our more 
frigid gospel has left our imaginations to supply. My master 
said : — 

" Now, will I give thee all thy souPs desire. 
All that can charm thine ear, and please thy sight, 
All that thy thought can frame, or wish desire, 
To steep thy ravished senses in delight ; 
The sumptuous feast, enhanced with music's sound, 
Fittest to tune the melting soul to love. 
Rich odors, breathing choicest sweets around 
The fragrant bow'r, cool fountain, shady grove ; 
Fresh flowers to strew thy couch, and crown thy head : 
Joy shall attend thy steps, and ease shall smooth thy bed." 

0, what a tempting, lovely tempting devil! who could 
withstand him? And is there anything in all Jehovah's heav- 
en, to match the glories, and felicities of our Pandemonium ? 
And will ye still continue to revile my blessed master, my God 
and Savior: my imperial sovereign, the devil! will ye still 
dare to call him by such degrading names as " Old Scratch,''^ 
''Old Harry,'' ''Old Nick,'" the "0/^5oy,"and the ''Old Oner 
who, had he been capable of growing old, and owed a debt to 
nature, must long ago have paid it. But ah, no ! 

" The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
But he shall flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amid the war of elements. 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." 

Say ye that my master hath a cloven foot; and taunt ye 
both him and me with your evangelical jibe? **How beautiful 
are the feet of them that preach the gospel ?" Then let them 



THE devil's pulpit. 73 

that preach the gospel, accept the noble challenge which I 
have given them, to undertake its defence, on terms of fair 
and free discussion. Let them come and stand foot to foot, 
with me, and see how soon they should find themselves de-feet^ 
ed. For, by my master's honor, in the solution of that enigma, 
would I convict them of being as ignorant of the real mean- 
ing of the gospel, as if they didn't know great A from a bull's 
foot. 

But as a mistake in a matter which concerns your soles 
may be a very serious matter at the last : — to the law and to 
the testimony ! and judge for yourselves, whether the cloven 
foot belong to my master, or to yours. When your prophet 
Ezekiel, describing the person of God himself, says, that 
** his legs were straight legs, but the sole of his foot was 
the sole of a calf's foot:" and, in Dr. Parkhurst's Hebrew 
and Greek Lexicons, may you see the cherubim of glory 
shadowing the mercy-seat of Yahou, with four heads a-piece, 
but only one leg ; all heavenly-minded creatures, being as 
headstrong as you please, but devilish weak i' th' understand- 
ing. 

But, and if a cloven foot, were such disparagement ; what 
say ye to your own apostles, with their cloven tongues, of 
which the only conceivable use must have been, to speak 
double with, to say one thing and mean another ; of which 
I have heard my honorable master say, in the language of 
Pandemonium — 

K%0pof yap fioi^KCivos Ojxois A^taSaio -nvXrifftv 
Os K^erepov fxev Kvdei evi <ppecai aWo 6e Pa^ei, 

" The man who one thing thinks, and can another tell, 
My soul abhors him as the gates of hell." 

Your master could indeed bestow the gift of tongues, and 
your clergy have it most copiously : but mine alone could serve 
you up the tongue, with brain sauce to it. But if you be not 
satisfied with my ministry, as the ambassador of his satanic 
majesty, I'll fetch my master himself. By process of magical 



74 THE devil's pulpit. 

incantation, I'll raise the devil : and you shall take his measure 
for a pair of shoes. 

The last scene of the temptation of the son of God, was an 
after-dinner scene, and is more explicitly and circumstantially 
related by the holy evangelist : " Again the devil taketh him up 
into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the 
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, in a moment of 
time ; and saith unto him, * All these things will I give thee, 
if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' " Whereupon the 
Galilean, with an impudence and ingratitude which showed 
the manners of one who had been born in a stable, turns me 
a particular part of his person on my divine master, and says, 
" Get thee lehind me, Satan : for it is written, thou shalt wor^ 
ship the Lord thy God^ St. Luke closes the story with the 
curious words, " And when the devil had ended all the tempta^ 
tion, he departed from him, for a season,'''' 

For a season! Yes! for a season. For, be sure on't, my 
master will not be insulted with impunity: he'll settle with 
him for this: he'll meet him at Gethsemane : he'll pay off the 
whole score : he'll nail him for it. 

For though my master " be not choleric nor warm, yet has 
he something dangerous about him^ which let your prudence 
fear." St. Matthew concludes his narrative with merely say- 
ing, " Then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and 
ministered unto him.^'' 

So, where the devil left him, I shall leave him too, only 
commending to your observance, how accurately the analogy is 
adhered to ; which, wherever Satan is mentioned, either in the 
Old or New Testament, invests him with a character of superior 
dignity and greatness. How respectfully do those angels and 
ministers of grace, keep their distance from the royal presence, 
and leave the son of God to starve, till it be my master's sovereign 
pleasure, to let him eat. 

And I must remind ye, sirs, on behalf of my sovereign, that 
however disrespectfully ye may have learned, and accustomed 
yourselves to speak and think, of his serene highness, ye have 



THE devil's pulpit. J^ 

learned no such lesson, nor could fairly have drav^n any such 
inference, either from your Old or New Testament. 

The moral character of Satan, is wholly unexceptionable. 
For though it be once said, on wholly ex-parte evidence, that 
*' he was a liar from the he ginning, and abode not in the truth ;" 
and that he was the father of lies,* which I admit him to have 
been, to his immortal honor ; as I shall show 'tis a charge of 
which the sound alone has struck your ear, while your under- 
standing is innocent of the meaning. 

Physically we acknowledge, morally we deny, the charge. 
The father of aberrations, who, from the beginning, slipt out of 
the zodiac, and with his tail drew after him a third part of the 
stars of Heaven, was as pure from any moral defect, in that phys- 
ical obliquity, as the sun's disk, from darkness. And though my 
great master be called the ^emp^er, who tempted Job, and tempt- 
ed David, and the son of David: yet, methinks, 'tis rather dis- 
gracious of " they upon the adverse faction," to represent that 
as a disparagement in my sovereign, which they account the 
distinguishing perfection of theirs, who is the great universal 
tempter, who has sent the whole human race into a state of 
temptation and trial. 

And if it be the devil alone, who can possibly tempt man- 
kind, who is it, that the Christian is addressing when he says, 
** Our Father — lead us not into temptation?" 

And are you so dead sure on't, that your minds are under 
the guidance of God's holy spirit, in being led to hear your 
gospel ministers, when your gospel itself so positively shows 
you, that if you were led by the spirit, it would not be to church 
or chapel, that you would be led ; but to the Rotunda. The 
spirit of truth would lead you in the pursuit of it ; not to go 
again and again — to where you were in the habit of going, but 
to where you had never been before ; and you would be as will- 
ing to embrace it, whether it came from heaven or hell, from 
the devil's bishop, or from the devil himself. 

* AvdpcoTTOKTOVO r}V aTT^ap')(r]ij on xptvarm £Oti, — John viil. 44, 



76 THE devil's pi;LPrf. 

Though the devil be called an accusevy and take his names 
of the adversaryy and ^tapvXog, from the circumstance of his 
accusing the brethren, day and night, before God : yet, be it 
observed, he is never called a false accuser. And, to an in- 
nocent man, an accuser, is not an enemy. It is the wicked, 
the guilty, the criminous alone, who have cause to fear an 
accuser. 

But, take all the names and titles of his diabolical majesty, 
that you can find, from the first of Genesis to the last of Reve- 
lation, and I defy your proof of one, whose literal meaning or 
significancy implies any such sense of moral wickedness as 
you have imagined, or which does not imply, and directly lead 
the mind, to that astronomical solution, which my previous 
lectures, prepare ye to anticipate. " That old serpent, which is 
called the devil and Satan," says St. John. 

From the fact of the serpent representing in hieroglyph, all 
the great theories of astronomical science — the serpent became 
the great emblem of the supreme being. Take all his other 
glorious names, in conjunction with that of Satan, and the diffi- 
culty will be, to hide yourselves from the broad glare of light, 
and to resist the conviction which I flash upon you. Is he not 
Lucifer, that name signifying the bearer of light ? 

Is he not Belzebub, Lord of the Scorpion; - •> - - 

Is he not Belial, Baali-Al^ Lord of the Opposite , 

Baal Berith, Lord of the Covenant ; 

Baal Peor, Lord of the Opening ; 

Baal Zaphon, Lord of the North ; 

Baal Perazim, Lord of the Divisions ; 

Baal Samen, Lord of Heaven ; 

Baal Aiten, the Lord Almighty ; 

Baal Moloch, the Lord— the King ? 

In all varieties and modifications of the name of the serpent, 
the Hebrew nacash, a serpent, the Greek Apa/cwi', a dragon, 
or O^ff, a snake, or basilisk, the royal serpent — the radical 
idea> is the attribute of a peculiar acuteness of sight ; and 



THE devil's pulpit. 77 

hence its reference to the all-seeing sun^ so addressed by 
Homer — 



The suiij who sees and hears all things. 

^"^ich hath, in Hebrew, saith St. John, his name Abaddon — 
iia\ IS, AB — AD — ON, literally, the Father, the Lord, the Being ; 
Mit la Greek, Apollyon — that is Apollo ; and IiaOavag, the ad^ 
perse king, in our own Greek Testaments ; which is a slight 
variation from the Hebrew, sathen, which first occurs in 1 
Chron. xxi. 1, where are the words, Ve yomed Shethn ol Yesroile, 
which is a direct repetition of 2 Samuel xxiv. ; in which this 
act of Satan, is expressly ascribed to Yahou — thus proving that 
Jehovah, and Satan, God and the devil, are really one and the 
self-same imaginary being. 

And in the ancient Phoenician tongue, which those first naviga- 
tors to this country, left as a relic of their superstition, he ac- 
quired the name of the deuce, whence the Romans borrowed 
their Latin word, the dues, and paid us back, the Deity. And 
this is the true history and origin of the devil. 

Now, sirs! be it your mind to perpend this magical in- 
cantation, and in a moment, will I confirm my title of the 
devil's chaplain, by calling up my master to ratify my cre- 
dentials. 

What oh, Satan ! Belzebub ! Baal Peor ! Belial ! Lucifer ! 
Abaddon ! Apollyon ! thou king of the bottomless pit, thou 
king of scorpions, having stings in their tails, to whom it 
is given to hurt the earth for five months — appear! — appear! 
[touching the globe). Well, he appears ! and behold, Satan 
himself is transformed into an angel of light. He who was 
in the bottomless pit ; but anon, by this semi-rotation of the 
globe the representation ot the earth's half-circuit round the 
sun, IS now become Lord of the ascendant, and appears in the 
venith. 

" And no marvely'*'* says that cloven-tongued and double- 
iaeaning magician, the apostolic chief of sinners ; and no 



r: THE DEVIL « PULPIT. 

marvel, indeed ; for these transformations of Satan into Christ, 
and of Christ back again into Satan, are as natural and as 
regular, as the succession of summer and winter, day and 
night. 

The marvel on't is, that men who have their eyes open 
enough in other respects, would be so wilfully blind, and so 
madly stupid in matters of religion, as to take fright and run 
away, as if a devil indeed were pursuing them, from the man, 
who offers them science in the place of fanaticism — evidence, 
demonstration, and truth — in the place of fable, faith, and 
falsehood. 

If one or two, or only a few analogies were found between 
the gospel-narrative and the visible phenomena of the starry 
heavens ; they might be referred to the vague indefiniteness of 
curious coincidence : and the gospel, in its broad lines of de- 
tail, be considered as historically true, notwithstanding. But 
when all is coincidence from beginning to end, when the 
analogy breaks not down in one single point — to entertain a 
doubt of the only inference resulting, or to imagine, that the 
gospel could possibly be true, is possible only to that innocent 
idiotcy of understanding, that could imagine that the moon 
was made of a green cheese, or to that priestly villany of 
heart, that would swear that it was so, to serve its vile priest- 
ly craft. 

And observe ye, sirs, 1 pray, the majesty, the grandeur of 
truth. Our method of interpreting the sacred scriptures, leaves 
us in no difficulty, drives us on no subterfuges. We are not 
put to the juggling unitarian artifices, of picking and culling, 
rejecting passages which we don't like : swallowing the camel, 
and choking at his tail ; but all goes down with us ; and from 
those very difficulties in their very grossest form, which uni- 
tarian craft would so craftily evade, bring we forth the richer 
array of evidence, and the brighter refulgence of truth. Neither 
are we put to it, to shelter ignorance, under the bull-hide 
shield of sanctified insanity, or the canting insolence of those 
three parts, idiots, and nine parts, knaves, who, when they 



THE devil's pulpit. 79 

could not for the life of 'em say a sensible thing, nor tell us 
the derivation of a single word of the shovelfuls they heap 
on us, are for quitting scores, by Mother Cole's reckoning, 
** What will become of your soul, when you die ? You'll think 
very differently when you come to lie on a dying bed. Think 
of the deaths of Woltaire, and Tom Paine, and Row-Shew, 
where are they now ? Why, where you'll be perhaps 
before a fortnight's over your head, lifting up your eyes in 
hell, and axing for a drop of water to squench your burning 
tongue !'' 

Thus would usurping idiotcy insult the face ot science, and 
barbarous ignorance, tread on the neck of learning. 

And thus it was, sirs, that from a dire necessity of protecting 
themselves from the squeeling savages of salvation — whose 
ferocious dispositions would be satisfied with nothing but tales 
of horror, a murdered God, a crucified Savior, and a red-hot 
blazing hell — the first men of science were driven into dissimu- 
lation, and obliged to hide the bright pearls of astronomical 
knowledge under the thick veils of gospel allegory. And this 
is the true history and origin of the gospel. 

We forgive, we pity, yea, we may admire, the policy which 
a dire necessity forced upon those who had the start in the 
march of intellect before the general mind was stirring. Their 
writings would not have come down to us at all, the rich 
treasures of their collective wisdom would have been despoiled, 
unless their value and their splendor nad neen concealed 
under the allegorical veil. They had something that they 
could teach: they taught it, not perhaps as they would, but as 
it would be endured — passing the word of truth through the 
ruffian hands of the all-believing multitude, under the pro- 
tecting shell of miracle and fiction, upon the principle which 
themselves avow — " None of the wicked shall understand, hut 
the wise shall understand,^^ 

But not so is it with the priests of the present day: with the 
protestant priests, even with the most enlightened of our dis- 
senting clergy — unitarians ministers and lecturers on the evi- 



80 THE devil's pulpit, 

dences of the Christian religion, in this priest-ridden metropolis 
-m this, the nineteenth century; who, instead of being be- 
forehand with the world in the progress of knowledge, hang 
like a dead weight upon the wings of science, and are the 
greatest obstacles to human improvement that the world ever 
had to contend with. 

Estimating the power of priestcraft, as it only can be esti- 
mated, by the quantity of intellect over which it prevails, 
surely we have proof that that power was never so great as in 
the present age, when it is no longer children and savages, but 
men in stature, and intelligent men in everything else, who 
tremble at the fee, faw, fi, fum, of the nursery, and dare 
not trust themselves to go to any school where there is a possi- 
bility that they may learn more than is to be learned in the 
gospel shop. 



END OF THE FIKST PISCOURSE ON EAISING THE DETO. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS "—Allan Cunningham. 

PART II.— OF RAISING THE DEVIL! 

AN ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON THE TEMPTATION 
OF CHRIST. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESSES CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOVEMBER 27, 1830. 



' Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wildernessy to be 
tempted of the DeviU^ — Matthew iv. 1. 



Bring me up, sirs, the benefit of your remembrance of the 
great discoveries we have made in the stable of Bethlehem, 
where I showed you the infant Jesus in the precise position of 
Jupiter, in the stable of Augias, suckled by a goat. 

That Capricornus, the Goat of December, rendering over 
his charge to Aquarius, the Water-bearer — that is, the John 
the Baptist of January : John must unbind the frosts of win- 
ter, and, with descending rains, must baptize the GoJ of 
day, ere he can enter fully on his ministry, as he saith in 
character, " Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to 
fulfil all righteousness^^ — that is, ** thus must we observe the 
most accurate astronomical analogies, and make our magical 
spell a perfect diagram of the visible heavens.^^ And there- 
fore, says John the Baptist, " that he might be made mamfest 
to J^rae/"— that is, that the sun might come to shine forth in 
the Zodiac, ** came I baptizing with water^ And thus again, 
in character, our genius of the month of Johnuary, seeing 

6 



82 THE devil's pulpit. 

Jesus at a distance — that is, at a month's distance, in Aries, the 
Ram of March, he exclaims, *' Behold the Lamb of Gad, that 
taketh away the sin of the world ;" that is, that rectifying the 
unevenness of day and night of the Zodiac, which, in astronom- 
ical language, is the ivorld, and gives an equal length of day 

and night to the whole earth : h aipo^v rriv afiapriav rw KoafiH. 

Why, sirs, it is a sarcasm and a pun on language, to suppose 
an allusion to such idiotcy as the conceit of taking away the 
criminality of the crimes of men. From which analogy, the 
world — that is, all the constellations which make up the great 
circle of the heavens, are astronomically allegorized as paying 
him their adorations in that sublime mysticity. This is his 
name, whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. 
But how can he be brought into the world, or be led up into 
that wilderness, or jumble of confusion, which the starry canopy 
of Heaven presents to the untutored eye ? 

How, but by the spirit? that holy Gust, that rushing mighty 
wind, which is necessarily ** not made, nor created, nor begotten, 
but proceeding,''^ eternally and necessarily proceeding from the 
rapid and eternal motion of the whole solar system, " wheeling 
unshaken through the void immense," with a velocity that beg- 
gars all power of numbers: — 

" So late d£scried by HerschePs piercing sight, 
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling night; 
Ten thousand marshalled stars — a silver zone, 
EiTuse their blended radiance round her throne j 
Suns call to suns in lucid orbs conspire. 
And light exterior worlds with golden fire.'' 

And what must that allegorical nonentity, whose lowest 
position was the stable of his nativity in the sign of Cajjricornus, 
the O^oat, immediately after having been baptized by Aquarius, 
the Water-bearer^ necessarily have to pass through, before he 
can enter upon his ministry, and come at what ill the gospel 
ministers are marching after, the mutton of Marcn, and the 
beef o{ April? Why ! he must live upon^sA; and there they 



THE devil's pulpit. 83 

are for him, in the pavilion of February, extending their scaly- 
influence, more or less, over forty days and forty nights, during 
which poor Jesus is in the plight of, " out of work, and nothijig 
coming in,''^ 

He has all that idle time upon his hands, and (the proverb's 
somewhat musty) but when my master finds a man idle, he 
generally sets him to work. 

He was very low spirited ; and so, like all other low-spirited 
fellows, he was preparing to enter upon the ministry. And as, 
of course, he would want a private tutor for that business ; he 
put himself to school to the devil. 

How rough and unseemly, sirs, are these husks and shells, 
on which the swine do feed ; how rich the pearls of science, 
for the throwing of a few of which, before the Christian herd, 
the Christian clergy, have read to me the sentence of my fate, 
" God shall suddenly shoot at me with a swift arrow, that I 
shall be wounded. 0, how suddenly shall I consume, perish, 
and come to a fearful end !" I know it ! I know it ! I know 
it will be so ! But be my epitaph — ** The man who loved truth 
more than he feared death ! and hated Christianity more than 
he loved life." 

But your minds once awakened from the drunken dream of 
faith, to the sober realities of reason, will run with a rapidity 
faster than demonstration can keep up with you, through the 
solution of the astronomical riddles of the labors of the sun, 
which constitute the whole substantive sense, and original and 
entire meaning — alike of the Pagan, Jewish, and Christian 
mythology : alike of the Shasters, Vedas, and Pouranas of the 
ea«t, and of both the Old and New Testaments of our occiden- 
tal world. 

And why are those most beautiful, incomparably beautiful 
and sublime compositions, which you call the Psalms of 
David, divided into thirty or thirty-one portions, to be tn- 
chanted morning and evening, for every day of the month, 
through the twelve months of the year. But, because they are 
indeed the songs of Zion—.i. e. of the Zodiac, detailing in 



84 THE devil's pulpit. 

mystic allegories all the grand vicissitudes of the year, the joys 
and sorrows, dejections and elevations, conflicts and victories 
of the true David, the sun : who is despairing in winter, 
hoping in spring, triumphing in summer, and dejected in 
autumn. And, according lo the predicaments of his physical 
phenomena, himself addresses, or is addressed, in the beautiful 
adaptations of the allegory. 

Who then, in this congruity, must necessarily be at once his 
guide, and tutor, and yet his constant adversary ; but the ad- 
verse sign, the Ata,Jo>of — that is, the diametrically opposite 
sign, the devil, who is up, when he is down; and down, when 
he is up: who, therefore, in allegorical language, tempts him, 
through the wilderness — i. e. goes before him, through the 
signs of the Zodiac. And having led him to the top of iha* 
exceeding high mountain — that is, the Sun's highest point of 
ascension, the tropic of Cancer, the 21st of June, whose Hebrew 
name is Thomas, the very name you will observe of him among 
the twelve apostles, who was a crabbed incredulous fellow, 
and had more than half a mind to go back again. He ad- 
dresses him in that accurately astronomical problem — ^^ All 
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship 
rne:'"^ 

And from that point, he astronomically does, and allegori- 
cally did, fall down and worship him — that is, comes down 
from his height of ascension, in succession, after the devil ; 
who, having been the leader, and so, seemed to go before, and 
drag and pull Christ up to that point, immediately after be- 
comes the follower, and receives that astronomical rebuke: 
*' Get THEE behind me, Satan,^^ wath that astronomical ex- 
planation of it — ^' For it is written^^ — that is, it is according 
to the everlasting law of the heavenly bodies — ** Thou shalt 
worship''^ — that is, thou, the adverse sign, shalt follow or 
come after the Lord thy God — that is, as I have so abundant- 



' Taira rravTa cot (fwao), eav ttscojv TiPocKWrjarii fioi. 



THE devil's pulpit. 85 

ly explained — thou shalt follow after the constellation of the 
Ram, which literally was, and eternally is, the Lord Gad of 
Israel. .^^■"■- 

- Nor will you ever be confused in this science, if you will 
but remember the simple axiom, that as there are three persons 
in the Godhead, so there are the three persons in the devil- 
head : the Hydra, extending over the three signs of Cancer, 
Leo, and Virgo, is the devil. The Dragon, that persecutes 
the Virgin, is the devil ; and the Whale, that persecutes the 
Lamb, is the devil ; yet are they not three devils, but one 
devil: the moral character of Satan being nothing more than 
a picture of the physical phenomena of these three constella- 
tions. 

And the creed of Saint Athanasius, or the Athanasian, or 
immortal creed, through all the conundrums and apparent 
contradictions of its theological system, is a most beautiful and 
scientific exhibition of the grand paradoxes of the Zodiac. ' 
Thus God becomes man, when the Sun of the Vernal Equinox, 
in the Lamb of March, becomes the Sun of the Autumnal 
Equinox, about the 29th of September, which is the day of the 
Archangel Michael. And Christians, without knowing the 
physical meaning of their belief, have universally believed that 
Saint Michael, the archangel, whose name they translate as 
signifying equal with God, was none other than God himself. 
Michaelmas-day being exactly of the same length as lady-day, 
and the Sun of the 29th of September, most literally is the 
same Sun as the Sun of the tribe of Gad, in the 25th of March, 
as God and man is one Christ. In the ancient Persic projec- 
tion of the sphere, the genius of the autumnal equinox, was 
represented as a fierce warrior, holding a pair of scales in his 
hands, in signification of his astronomical character, as that 
Just One, which is one of the titles of Him that was crucified. 
And the Archangel Michael is represented as warring with 
Satan, on the altar-piece of Trinity College, Cambridge, pre- 
cisely as the head of the Serpent appears to be pulled down 



86 THE devil's pulpit. 

by the genius of the scales of September in the starry- 
heavens. 

And Gad becomes Michael — that is, God becomes man, 
not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the 
manhood into God. 

That is, with most astronomical correctness, the sign does 
not enter into the Sun, but the Sun enters into the sign 

© II e. 

Again: — Christ, that is, the Sun, is most literally the Medi- 
ator, or go-between, between Gad and man, because the fixed 
stars which compose or make up the tribe of Gad, and all the 
other tribes of the celestial Israel, are suns to systems of their 
own : and our earth's annual motion round the sun throws the 
sun, or makes him seem to go, between us and those measure- 
lessly remote fixed stars. 

As, only walk round the table with your eyes steadily di- 
rected to any fixed object on the table, you will see that ob- 
ject, with relation to the distant parts of the room, exactlv 
opposite them, changing its point of opposition as you change 
your situation. And thus, while you alone are moving, the ob- 
ject on which your eye is fixed will seem to be moving ; and 
thus, will be a mediator, or intercessor, at all times between 
you and the more distant fixed objects, by which alone you can 
measure the change which is going on, not in their positions, 
but yours. 

And now look, sirs, upon the starry heavens, or, for your 
greater convenience, on this most accurate picture of them 
upon this beautiful toy, the celestial globe : the great liar from 
the beginning — that is, not the moral, but the physical liar ; 
the constellation Ccetus, the largest of all Heaven, just at the 
beginning, at the point of the vernal equinox, slips out of the 
Zodiac. He abode not in the truth, and is, as his eternal 
punishment, condemned to follow the Lamb, wheresoever he 
goeth. And here, you see, most literally, ^^ He walketh about, 
seeking whom he may devour,^^ 

Whom, says the cloven-tongued and double-meaning apostle, 



THE devil's pulpit. 87 

reststf steadfast in the faith — that is, " do you stand fast in the 
Zodiac, out of which my master made a slip from the very- 
beginning, and the devil a bit will my master be able to catch 
you." 

" Resist the devil f and he will fee from you*'' — that is, turn 
your backs upon him, and you'll find he's going the other 
way. 

His infernal majesty ne\5er thinks a soul worth dodging after ; 
he always keeps straight forward in his course, and ** hath no 
variablenessj nor shadow of turning. ^"^ 

But look now at the allegorical joys and sorrows, desires 
and fears of the astronomical David of the Old Testament, and 
the no less astronomical Son of David of the New. Says he, 
in the 22d incantation, " Fat hulls of Bashan close me in on 
every side,^^ Why, there they are, in the Taurus of April, in 
which every year, the sun is literally enclosed. Says he, in 
the spell of Matthew ? *' Suffer the little children to come 
unto mcj for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.'''' Why, there 
they are, in the Gemini, or Twins of May ; where you shah 
see them lords of the ascendant every year, at that point of 
time when — 

*^ From opening fields of aether wide displayed. 
Child of the sun, refulgent summer, comes.'^ 

Or, cries he again, in the 22d Psalm : " save me from the 
lion^s mouth, thou that hast heard me, also from among the 
horns of the unicorns.''^ Why, there never were such animals 
as unicorns upon earih, except in the little baby's song, and the 
big baby's bauble ; — 

" The lion and the unicorn^ a fighting for the crown, 

The lion beat the unicorn, and drove him round the town," 

But here, sirs, is the very astronomical crisis, to the accu- 
racy of the setting of a watch, of the allegorical adaptation of 
that incantation ; where you see the sun, by rising up into the 



88 THE devil's pdlpit. 

arms of those little children, just contrives to make his escape 
from the horns of the unicorns ; and has now, to look out for 
the next forthcoming danger, and must make a dip to the nicety 
of a hair's breadth, to keep clear of the lion's mouth ; and ** O 
deliver my soul from the sword j my darling, from the power of 
the dog ? O make thy way straight before me,^^ Let me not 
be attracted from my course by the power of the dog, in the 
south, when he rises heliacally with me in the summer: nor 
let me be worried by them in the long nights of winter, when 
" in the evening they will return, grin like a dog, and go about 
the city."— P^a/m 59. 

Resist the astronomical demonstration, if you possibly can, 
of that mystical lament of the allegorical Jonah in the whale's 
belly, which your ignorant clergy, for any sense that they could 
ever find of it, are not able to protect from the laughter and 
scorn of all rational men: but which rises into grandeur and 
astonishing wisdom and truth, when read to its astronomical 
significancy: ^^ I went down to the bottom of the mountains; 
the earth with her bars was about me ; for ever, then, said 7, 
/ am cast out of thy sight, yet will I look again toward thy 
Holy Templet Which, with severer literality of translation, 
gives us the truly magnificent language of the Sun, in his 
state of humiliation, struggling to ascend in the ecliptic: *'/ 
went down to the bottom of the mountains,''^ repeatedly called 
" the depths of Satan,^^ the earth with her everlasting bands, 
and colors was above me. Then said I, *' I have sunk below 
the line of the zodiacal constellations, those eyes of Heaven ; 
yet will I emerge again toward thy Holy Temple," which is 
here in the constellation of the Ram : and just exactly is it three 
days and three nights, to the accuracy of the setting of your 
watch, that is, from twelve o'clock at midnight of St. Thomas's 
day, that the Jonah of the Old Testament is in the whale's 
belly, and the Son of Man of the New Testament is in the 
heart of the earth — that is the sun is in the lowest degree of 
his descent in the curve of the ecliptic, r}Sr] o^ei, TETapraTo^ yap can 
— that being the exact term of the winter solstice, or of th* 



THE devil's pulpit. 89 

sun's seeming to be at a stand still ; from which point, gaining 
his first degree on the first moment of the 25th of December, at 
midnight, at the very moment when the star in the east, the 
brilliant of the constellation of the Virgin, is seen rising on the 
eastern border of the horizon. The whole pagan world did, 
through countless ages, rise at midnight to let in Christmas, 
and sang that well-known Christmas carol : — 

" A Virgin unspotted, by prophets foretold. 
Brought forth her child Jesus, which now you behold ; 
For to be our Redeemer, from death, hell, and sin : 
Which Adam's transgression involved us in.'' 

And who the devil was Apam, that any transgression of his 
should get us into such a damnation scrape. Why, who ? but 
whom the name itself literally signifies. Ad — am, the Lord, 
the FIRE ? — '* that is, the sun himself, who has been" trans- 
gressing for the last three months most horribly, sinking lower 
and lower into iniquity, or unevenness, and giving us such 
miserable days, that if he does not mend his manners, and be- 
gin and lengthen the days again, it will be all hell and St. 
Thomas with us. 

Hence the apostles' riddle about the first and second Adam ; 
both meaning one and the self-same personification of the sun. 
The first, or falling Adam, being the sun, descending in the 
ecliptic, and shortening the days: and the second, or rising 
Adam, being the sun ascending again, lengthening the days, 
and cheering our desponding hearts with the promise of an an- 
nual salvation. 

" Assured, tho' horrors round our mansion reign, 
That spring will come, and nature smile again." 

And thus the sun, returning annually to his first degree of 
ascension, on Christmas day, recalls the departed soul of 
Lazarus, whom he loved (the year) who has been in a g^i.llop- 
ing consumption for a long while: though, as he expressly 
tells you, ** this sickness is not unto deaths 



90 THE devil's PTTLPIT. 

Hence, the Sun speaks that sublimely allegorical and most 
correctly astronomical language: ^' I am the resurrection and 
the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall 
never die,'^ 

Thus, the Sun pledges to us, not the foolish dream of the 
immortality of man, but the philosophical truth of the eternity 
of nature. And so exactly is the astronomical truth observed, 
that it is just exactly, nay to the moment, when Lazarus has 
been four days dead [rsTapraiog tan) — that is, hath the fourth 
day — that is, when the year has stood at the winter solstice, 
during which, Jesus (that is, the Sun) abode still in the same 
'place where he was ; that, on the morning of Christmas-day, he 
annually cries — Aoa^ape Ssvpo s^co — Lazarus, come forth. And 
Lazarus — that is, the genius of Christmas-day, does come 
forth, shivering, freezing, deadly cold, so as just to say there 
was a spark of life in him, but that was all, " bound hand and 
foot with grave-clothes;" and his face wrapt up in a towel, 
precisely as the dressers of a pantomime would send you up 
the character of Jack Frost, with a good dash of the flour-bag 
in his face, and a cigar in his mouth ; you might have taken 
Jack Lazarus for a white devil. 

And who, then, are those black ones, the Scorpions having 
stings in their tails, to whom it was given to hurt the earth for 
five months ? but the allegorical genii of the Scorpion of Oc- 
tober, followed by the four wintry months of November, De- 
cember, January, and February, all under the influence of 
Abadon, the king of the bottomless pit — that is, of that part of 
the earth's surface, which, being turned from the Sun, looks 
relatively downward, toward the regions of infinite space, which 
literally, and really, is, a bottomless pit, boundless, bottomless, 
measureless, infinite. 

And what are the seven churches, but the seven remaining 
summer months, answering most strictly and literally in their 
very names, and allegorically moral characters, to their physi- 
cal antitypes, in the seven summer signs of the zodiac. 



THE devil's pulpit. 91 

I ask no more of the Christian, than that he should not deny 
the text of his own book ; I ask no more of any man's credulity, 
than, that he should not be unwilling to admit that seven and 
five are twelve : for, so sure as they are so, so sure is this 
demonstration, that the gospel is not history, but fiction ; not 
truth, but allegory ; not fact, hut a fable. 

For, look ye, sirs, if ever there were such a thing as allegory 
in the world ; and the imaginative faculty in man could im- 
agine the sun to speak, what language could be imagined for 
him more characteristic than those words of Christ in the 
Revelation of St. John : " I am he who holdeth the seven stars 
in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden 
candlesticks.^^ 

Egregious raving and idiotcy, in any meaning that your 
priests could give you of it ; sublimely beautiful, and rich of 
science and truth, when interpreted by the key which itself 
presents to us, in those words : " the seven churches which are 
in Asia" — that is, most literally, the seven holy congregations, 
or constellations, which are in the land of fire — that is, in the 
Sun's path, in the kingdom of Heaven — that is, the reign of the 
seven summer months. 

The seven stars, says the sacred text, are the angels of the 
seven churches — and the seven candlesticks are the seven 
churches. 

What are candlesticks, but fixed lights? what are those fixed 
lights, in the midst of which the sun walketh, but those con- 
gregations, or groups of fixed stars, through the midst of which 
lies the Sun's annual course in the zodiac ? 

And here they are in name, in character, in order. 

The church, or constellation of Ephesus, of Thyatira, of 
Philadelphia, of Pergamos, of Sardis, of Smyrna, and of 
Laodicea, 

1. Ephesus, from E^eo-o?, upon Hesus, the same as Jesus, the 
Gaellish name of the God Mars, whence our English name, for 
March, who is the Lord of Hosts, of the Old Testament, and 
the Lamb of Gad, of the New. 



92 THE devil's pulpit. 

To this church, Christ threatens that he will come and 
remove its candlestick out of its place ; and, by the well-known 
movement of the heavenly bodies, called the precession of the 
equinoxes, this candlestick, which, 388 years before our Chris- 
tian era, was the first of the churches, has been removed out 
of its place; and the equinoctial point which was then in the 
first degree of Aries, is found at present to have left the second 
of the fishes. 

2. Thtatira, from Qvareipw — that is (7 tread on frankin- 
cense), frankincense being offered to the sun, when in the con- 
stellation of the Bull of April, famous for " its patience, its 
labor, and its work," in the business of agriculture. 

3. VniLA'DE'LTiii A, brotherly love, the unequivocal character- 
istic of the two loving brothers, the Twins of May. 

4. Pergamos, height, elevation, marriage of fire ; the sun's 
highest point of elevation is in this constellation, which dwell- 
eth where Satan's seat is. The Hydra's head being, as you 
see, on the celestial globe, immediately under this church, 
which is Cancer, the Crab, of June, whose Hebrew name is 
Thomas ; who, in the gospel allegory, was but a crabbed sort 
of fellow, and had half a mind to go back again. And here 
you see him, in his position of the heavens, bearing physically 
the very character which he holds morally in the allegory. 
He comes to the zenith meridian, at the very moment, for 
looking down to see Jesus raise the soul of Lazarus. But 
he was no favorite of Jesus, who tells him in the sacred text, 
*' Thou hast m thee those that hold the doctrine of Balaam,"*^ 
And here, in the very midst of the constellation. Cancer is 
Balaam's ass, who has found his way to the very highest place 
in Heaven (and, of course, brought the doctrine with him), 
but has let the doctor tumble off his back: and he^s gone 
to hell. 

The fifth church is Sar-dis, that word, formed of the Am- 
monian primitives, Sar, the rock, stone, or pillar, and Dis, 
God, afterward passing into the Coptic, or ancient Phcpnician 
word, EL-EON, the Sun, the Being, and naturalized into the 



THE devil's pulpit. ^3 

Greek, Latin, French, and English word Lion — that is, the 
Lion of July ; who, having been the Lamb of the tribe of Gad^ 
or God of March, appears here as the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah, or July. And here, as the Sing-Avatak, or the Deity, 
under the form of a man lion, bursting from a pillar,^^ exem* 
plifying that frightful language ascribed to G-od in Hosea, viii. ; 
" I will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour then 
like a lion,^^ 

The sixth church is Smyrna, that word signifying a bundle 
of myrrh, the offering made to the sun, in the Virgin of 
August, having reference to the fragrant posy which she holds 
in her hand, and to the, milk-pail in the hand of the Jsis- 
Omnia of Egypt, the Indian Isa, and the Grecian Ceres ; ex- 
emplifying that amorous compliment in the song of the loves 
of Christ and his church, "a bundle of myrrh is my beloved 
to TTie." 

The seventh, and last of the summer months — that is, of 
the Asiatic churches is, Laodicea, that word, signifying, Xaos 
SiKaios — that is, the just or righteous people, living, as you see, 
in the scales of justice. Libra, the balance of September, when 
the weather is neither hot nor cold, but luke-warm : for which 
Christ, who, like Christians, had no notion of justice, threatens 
to spew it out of his mouth. 

And these seven churches — that is, holjy congregations — that 
is, constellations that are in Asia — that is, in the land of fire ; 
are included within the two covenants — that is, comingS'to* 
gether — that is, the two equinoctial points, when the sun, 
twice a year, in his oblique march in the ecliptic, comes to the 
line of the equator, as he does; in spring, about the 25th of 
March, and in autumn, about the 29th of September, called 
Michaelmas-day. And these two covenants are respectively 
the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace : because 
spring is the season for labor in cultivating the earth, and 



Showing the plate in Maurice^s History of Hindostan. 



94 THE devil's pulpit. 

autumn is the season for gathering in and enjoying the fruits of 
that labor. 

" The one,'*^ says the astronomical Hierophant, *' is from 
Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, and answereth to 
Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children^ 
That is, the vernal equinox, when that point was in Taurus, 
the Bull, was the time for putting the ox to the plough ; and, 
during the reign, both of that constellation and the succeeding 
Gemini, her children, mankind are under the covenant of 
works, and there can be no cessation of the labors of hus- 
bandry. But the covenant of grace, which is introduced by 
the fruitful mother of August, is J5/ew/^er« — that is, Liber, free, 
— Bacchus, the covenant of enjoyment, when the full ripened 
grapes are to be put into the agony, or wine-press, in the 
garden, and to sweat out their precious blood, into the cup of 
the fierceness of the fury of the wrath of Almighty God: — And 
^^All the ungodly of the earth shall drink ^^." 

" All the ungodly of the earth" meaning nothing more than 
all the months, October, November, December, January, and 
February, during which the sun is below the line of Gad — 
that is, the line of the equator, and therefore in a state of 
iniquity, unevenness, or ungadliness. And the lives of men 
are preserved during these cold and cheerless months, and 
the absence of the sun supplied to them, by his blood, the 
essence of his virtue, his concentrated wrath and heat, his 
fury poured forth, and corked up in bottles, to supply as 
occasion shall need, a summer within us, while all without is 
gloomy winter. 

Thus does the sun annually give his blood for the life of the 
world : and that blood being pressed out of the grape at the 
season of the vintage, which is indicated by the sun coming to 
the equator, at the autumnal equinox, when he gives an equal 
length of day and night to the whole earth; and so is the physi' 
cal emblem of moral righteousness: we have the secret of the 
invariable association of idea which connects the blood and 
righteousness of Christ, and as invariably designates that 




THE devil's pulpit. 95 

klood as the blood of the covenant, and the hlood of tTie cross : 
phrases as innocent of meaning as idiotcy itself, in any his- 
torical sense, that could be dreamed of, but most beautifully 
and scientifically solved by the physical and astronomical key. 

The blood of the grape, which has been ripened by the heat 
of the sun, and is to be pressed out at the time v^hen the sun 
crosses, or is crucified upon the line of righteousness, the 
equator, is therefore by metonymy, the blood of the sun, the 
blood of Christ, the blood of the cross, and the blood of the 
covenant. 

And thus the frightful story of the crucifixion is but an alle- 
gory of the process of the vintage: Jesus is nothmg more than 
the same personification as Bacchus, the god of Wine. 

'* And, when Jesus therefore had tasted the vinegar, he said, 
^ It is finished ;^ and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost,^^ 
John xix. ; meaning nothing more than that when the sour or 
thinner wine comes out of the press, which it does after the 
virtue of the grape is mainly drawn off, the fruit has sunk down 
in the press, the spirit evaporates, the vintner, dipping his finger 
in the liquor, and licking it, perceives, from its thinness and 
acidity, that all the virtue is extracted : and, " It is fnished,^^ 
— the process is over, the life of the grape is gone ; and any- 
thing more that you can draw oflf by tapping the press, will be 
mere blood and water. 

And here, sirs, do I present you types of the self-same 
heliolatrous allegory, constituting the basis of rne s^ory of the 
Indian idol, Chreeshna, existing, in written documents, in the 
Sanscrit tongue, more than fifteen hundred years before it 
became the curse of our western world, under the name of 
Christianity. 

But, I trust, we are living to see the day of an end to that 
curse — for a curse it has in all ages been heavier than any, and 
than altogether that ever afl^licted the condition, outraged the 
reason, and destroyed the virtue of men. I have raised the 
devil, raised him, I hope, above the power of our aristocratic 
priests, to found the aristocratic lie, which they call gospel, 



96 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 



on. I have, I hope, swept out the filthy stable of Bethlehem, 
and purified your hearts and minds from all respect for a 
religion which you see with your own eyes: never did and 
never will find an advocate, or a defender, of competent 
learning and talent to undertake its defence : where truth and 
science may have fair play to plant their battery against it. 
Kept up, indeed, it is, and kept up it will be, as any other 
piece of villany would, so long as the multitude can be be- 
maddened and befooled out of their reason, into that sneaking 
poverty of soul that would lay its neck in the mire for kings 
and priests to tread on. 

And thus, with millions a year wrung from the folly and 
fanaticism of a priest-ridden people, see we the pride, pomp, 
and circumstance, that can be attached to nonsense that child- 
hood itself would be ashamed of. 



AND OF THE DISCOURSE ON RAISING THE DEYIL. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 



"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— Allan Cunningham. 

THE TEMPLE: 

A SERMON, ON ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 

ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, JANUARY 9, 1831. 



" The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the 
Lord, are these.'^ — Jeremiah vii. 4. 



The Temple, in Hebrew, is Yekel ; in Greek, N<ioj ; m Lat- 
in, Templurn ; in English, Temple* 

The Greek word '^aoi is radical, but connate with Na^c, to 
inhabit or dwell in, the basis of one of the epithets of Jupiter. 

Zzv KvSi(TT€ [xeyKTTE ^£Xatj/£0£ff aidepi Naioiv — that is, " JeW, HlOSt glo- 

rious, most great, compelling the clouds dwelling in jEther !" — 
the Atlic form of which is New?, w, from New, glomero acervo 
cumulo. Thus clearly signifying a group, a collection, a con- 
stellation, agreeably to that definition of the apostle, to the 
Ephesians, chap, ii. : <^ A holy temple, a habitation of God, 
through the spirit." 

In the description of the New Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. 22, we 
have this solution of the matter : ** And I saw no temple 
therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the 

7 



98 THE devil's pulpit. 

temple of it." As, in that three-times-repeated saying of the 
Jews, rebuked by their prophet Jeremiah, ** The temple of the 
Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are 
these" (Jeremiah vii. 4) ; his argument being, that il was not 
sufficient, nor rationally consistent of them, to know which 
were the stars that constituted the temple of the Lord, unless 
at the time of the sun's entering into that constellation, 
which is the temple of the Lord, in which he gives an 
equal length of days and nights to all the earth, they should 
"thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neigh- 
bor," in imitation of the physical equity of the sun at that 
season. 

Hence, the sun, upon entering that constellation, in which 
he is so just and equal in the distribution of an equal length of 
day and night, to all the inhabitants of the earth, is distin- 
guished from the sun, as considered at any other season of the 
year, by the epithet so peculiarly appropriate to him at that 
season, " The Sun of Righteousness ;" or, as this great astro- 
nomical priest, Jeremiah, most sublimely allegorizes the equi- 
noctial sun ; this is his name, whereby he shall be called, 
^Hhe Lord our Righteousness:'''^ our English word Lord, 
compounded of the Phoenician "jn and *^"in — that is, the sun, the 
light, originally signifying the sun.' The whole year being 
reckoned to begin, as then it was, from the point of the vernal 
equinox, the spring quarter, in the month of March — we find 
the names of the last four months of the year, still retaining, 
in our own language, evidence of their origination in an era 
when the month of March was considered the first : as they 
are compounded of the Roman names of the numbers 7, 8, 9, 
10, and of the most ancient name of the great Phoenician God, 
Berith, v/hich, more literally, signifies a covenant — that is, a 
group or constellation ; and, in its full utterance, as Baal-Be- 
rith, the Lord of the covenant, was the name of the sun, as 
considered respectively in those covenants or constellations, 
Septem-Ber, Octo-Ber, Novem-Ber, and Decem-Ber — that is, 
the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth God-Berith, or God in his 



THE devil's pulpit. 90 

seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth celestial mansions: of which 
January being the eleventh, and February the twelfth, March, 
in which the sun enters the constellation of the Lamb, be- 
comes the first. And as time was reckoned from this constel- 
lation, the stars, of which it is composed, were called ** The 
Temple of the Lord.^^ 

As you will find, the original meaning of the Latin word, 
Tcmplum, had no reference to any religious edifice on earth, 
but signified a portion of the heavens, marked out by the lituus, 
or sacred crosier of the Augurs, who are the speakers in our 
text, pointing to the constellation of the Lamb of March, and 
saying, ** The Te7nple of the Lord,'''' &c. The Latin word 
tempus, time, is perfectly synonymous with templum : and from 
the equity of the sun, when in that temple, or at that tempus, 
that body of the clergy, who devoted themselves more espe- 
cially to the sludy of law and equity, and the administration 
of ^^ judgment hetioeen a man and his jieighhor,''' were called 
templars ; and designated the colleges in which they de- 
voted themselves to this study, " the temple." The celebrated 
Areopagus, or Hill of Mars, from whom our month of March 
derives its name, was literally the temple of that God Mars, 
the God of War, or the Lord of Hosts; in which temple law 
and justice were administered with such strict impartiality, 
that the gods themselves were believed to submit to its decis- 
ions. 

The most admired orations of Cicero, his accusations of Ver" 
res, his defence of Milo, all purport to have been delivered in 
the temple of the deities Castor and Pollux, who presided over 
the administration of justice. 

And if you ever travelled as far in your life, as to a place 
called Temple Bar, Fleet street, London, and used your eyes 
when upon your travels, so as to see what may there be seen, 
I shall not have to draw upon your credulity to persuade you, 
that there is in that neighborhood, a building, or collection of 
buildings, called the temple, which I should call the Areopa- 
gus, or Mars' Hill : and that that Areopagus, or Hill of Mars, 



100 THE devil's pulpit. 

or, in a word, the temple, is dedicated to the templars, or 
students of law and equity, whose future functions and duty it 
shall be to execute judgment between a man and his neigh- 
bor, as impartially as the Sun, when he enters into the 
Lamb of March, gives an equal length of day and night to all 
the earth. 

As you will see that that temple, which is not dedicated to 
the study of divinity, but of law, bears over all its great gates 
of entrance the figure of a Lamb, holding a cross in his paw, 
in direct indication, that it is none other than the Lamb of 
March, which is peculiarly the temple or the tempus, from 
which all reckoning of time began ; in which the Sun, crossing 
the equator in the sign of the Lamb, is the crucified, that is 
to say the crossified Lamb, and gives such equal justice to the 
whole earth, as the lawyers are understood to profess to do ; 
but in which, alas, they stick to their text no better than the 
parsons; and for this reason the templars, though they had 
nothing to do with religion, would always support the church- 
men, because the game between them was never any other 
than rogues all ; and honesty would cry, ** A plague on both 
their houses." 

You will believe me, too, when I instruct you, that that 
Areopagus, that Hill of Mars, the temple, is the Lawyer's 
House, situate at the west end of the city of el — on — don — 
that is, EL, the Sun ; on, the Being ; don, the Lord, or Adonis 
the Lord, the Being, the Fire : el — on — don, losing the 
significancy of those three Phaenician words, which show its 
original meaning in the shortened utterance, London, some- 
times still more shortened in the vulgar '' Lunnun."' 

On the highest spot of ground, in which city, those ancient 
PhcBnician settlers in Britain founded a magnificent cathedral 
to the honor of their God, el — on — don, from whom our city, 
to this day, retains its name of London. That the G-od Lon- 
don, to whose honor this great edifice was erected, was none 
other than the sun itself, is discovered to us, not merely in the 
meaning of the three radical Phoenician particles, that make 



THE devil's pulpit. 101 

up the word London ; but in the structure and ornaments of the 
edifice itself, which, how often so ever repaired or rebuilt, hath 
never varied, in one single stone or pillar, or statue, of which 
it is constructed, from the hieroglyphs and emblems by which 
it may be known and read of all men, as the cathedral or 
church of the sun. As on its western pediment you shall see, 
to this day, are the emblematical figures of Spring, Summer, 
Autumn, and Winter, ridiculously, though very craftily, called 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."^ 

And in the tympanum of that pediment, is an alto-relief, or 
hieroglyphical representation, than which no written or en- 
graven letters or words could more plainly, nay could any- 
thing like so plainly have said, ** This edifice is dedicated to 
the honor of the sun." 

Words may change or vary their significancy, but pictures 
speak the same language to all men, and can not be mis- 
understood, except where faith forbids the exercise of under- 
standing. 

For there, sirs, the sun in his place in the heavens is not 
more apparent, than is that representation of the triumph of 
the Sun, when he enters the constellation of Castor and Pollux? 
the twins of May, with his bright beams of light and glory, 
striking his adversary Saul, the gloomy Centaur of November, 
from off his horse, and seeming to insult his sprawling antago- 
nist, in those words : Ha^X DayX nua //£ SiojKcig, which, in their in- 
terpreted sense is '* November, November, why shouldst thou 
come after May?" 

For sure, it is madness only that could dream of any 
literal sense in the conceit of a man on the earth, perse- 
cuting a man in the sky ; nay, a God in heaven, so dev- 
ilishly uncomfortable in those mansions of happiness, as to 
come down stairs to tell us that somebody kicked him, and it 
was very hard. 

•March, April May June, Jiily> August: 

II II II II II II 

September, October, November: December, January, February. 



102 THE devil's pulpit. 

Our religious fanatics are always preaching up the conyer- 
sion of St. Paul : but so much go they before their horse to 
market in this, that not a word is there about the conTersion 
of St. Paul, in any part of the Scriptures: from beginning 
to end there's not an allusion to such a thing : the acts of the 
apostles, contain nothing of the kind. Good God ! may you 
exclaim, do I mean to say, the Christian can not read ? Yes ; 
that is what I do mean to say : to all intents and virtue of 
reading, a Christian can not read. It is faith doth put out 
the eyes of his reason, and he sees, not the text of the book 
itself, but the vain phantom of his oTvn foregone conceit : 
or he -would see that it was not Paul that was converted, but 
Saul. 

^d Saul is the name of that king of Israel, who perse- 
cuted David, and his brother Jonathan, who are the Gemini 
or Twins of !May, in the old allegory, as it is the name of the 
persecutor of the Son of David, who is the Castor and Pollux 
of the new. 

But Saul, we shall be told, is the same person who is after- 
ward called Paul, as St. Luke says, ''Saul, which is also 
called Paul.*' Yes, he is so, but by precisely the same allitera- 
tion as Sol, which is also called Poll. And Saul and Paul are 
one and the same persons, only in the same sense as the Sun 
of Xovember is the same as the sun of May. Only in different 
characters : Saul before his conversion, being the November 
sun, in the sign of Sagittarius, where you see the Great Perse- 
cutor, with his bow and arrow, playing havoc with vegetable 
nature, stripping the trees of their foliage, riding down to 
Damascus, and on the high road to hell and Tommy — that is, 
to St. Thomas's day, which is the 21st of December, the lowest 
point of the sun's declension ; and, consequently, the lowest 
pit of hell. 

The name Saul being, in Hebrew, the self-same word 
S^^•"^ which is, wherever it serves the purpose, translated 
hell: as the Greek name Paul is an abbreviation of the Greek 
Apollo, under whose protection the month of May is placed 



THE devil's pulpit. 103 

m the calendar of Julius Caesar, and of the name of the star 
Pollux, in which the sun appears in his regenerate and mild 
and amiable character at that delightful season. 

The waggery of pretending that what were really pagan 
edifices, were Christian edifices, and of changing the names 
of the pagan deities into Christian saints, even with the 
drollest puns upon the names, where no such pagan deities 
or Christian saints either, had ever existed, prevailed univer- 
sally throughout Christendom. We have not only our great 
jEdes Pollucis, or church of Pollux, turned into Saint Paul's 
church — that is, Poll into Paul. But if you shall ever visit 
Rome, you shall find the temple of Apollo that was, now 
called the temple of Apollinaris : the temple of Mars turned 
into the temple of Martina, and actually bearing the inscrip- 
tion : — 

" Martyrii gestans Virgo Martina coronam, 
Ejecto hiiic Martis numine templa tenet" — 

that is, 

" Mars hence expelled, Martina (martyred maid) 
Claims now the worship which to him was paid.'^ 

And if protestants were but as honest in acknowledging the 
real origin and derivation of their churches, as the Roman 
catholics, we should see a similar inscription on the biggest 
church in this metropolis. 

*'The church you see beneath this golden ball, 
Was built at first for Poll, but now for Paul." 

The conversion which it commemorates, is not a moral, but 
a physical one. As you see Saul, the man and horse of No- 
vember, in the tympanum, sprawling on the ground, while 
Pol, to whose honor the church is dedicated, and who has 
struck Saul to the ground, himself stands upright on the pedi- 
ment with his drawn sword in his hand, the point downward. 



104 THE devil's pulpit. 

as, having just done its work, in the attitude of a glorious con- 
queror. 

And this conversion, you will observe, takes place expressly 
at mid-day — that is, when the sun of Gemini is exactly at the 
meridian, twelve o'clock of the 9th of June, in the calendar of 
Julius Caesar. 

Now, it will be for those who would outrage our reason, by 
pretending an historical sense, for so clearly hieroglyphical a 
representation, and that this representation had reference to 
the conversion of a man, to go to the top of Ludgate hill, and 
look at it again : and ere they tell us that it represents nothing 
rnore than the conversion of the man, let 'em tell us why the 
devil the horse should be converted too ? for the horse happens 
to be the principal figure in the whole group : as the horse 
makes more than a half of the whole constellation of the 
Sagittary of November, which is literally struck to the earth 
by the ascendency of the sun in May; and there it actually is 
a sunbeam, which is represented as striking him to the earth, 
in that pediment. 

Well, then, may we say, to those most deceitful priests, who 
would so impudently lie us out of the use of our eyesight : Will 
ye put out the eyes of these people ? Ye take too much upon 
re, ye sons of Levi. 

The story of the conversion of St. Paul, in his journey to 
Damascus, has no account of a horse at all; but has a suffi- 
cient admission, that the apostle was not worth a horse, in 
that after he had been struck to the earth, and got on his legs 
again, he was led by the hand of those who were with him ; 
which would not have been the case, if they had a horse to 
have set him on. Yet no piece of statuary, no ancient en- 
tablature, no antique painting or picture in the world, repre- 
senting this allegorical conversion, omits to give the same 
prominence to the figure of the horse, which the horse bears 
in the figure of the Sagittarius of November : thus throwing 
us up a philosophical and rational meaning of that song of 
Miriam, in celebration of the self-*ame conversion of Saul into 



I 



THE devil's pulfit. 105 

Paul, when she sang — '' Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath 
triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown 
into the sea." And here, sirs, is Miriam (Spica Virginis), 
rising out of the Red sea, singing to Pol, who is at that mo- 
ment at the meridian: while Saul, the horse and his rider, is 
at that moment at the bottom of the sea. 

And that the ligure on the centre of the western pediment of 
Pol's cathedral is not a representation of the Apostle Paul, but 
is a representation of the god Pollux — that is, not of a Christian 
saint, but of a pagan diety: will strike the mind in a mo- 
ment's remembrance, that no persons who had respected 
what Christians call divine revelation, would have set up 
** any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in 
heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under 
the earth." 

Nor could even a mistaken piety been possibly so much mis- 
taken, as to have intended to honor Christ and Christianity, 
when it called the noblest temple it could raise, by the name 
of the servant rather than that of the master — set up the 
apostle above the Savior, and honored and served the creature 
more than the Creator. 

But it must strike the eye, that the figure itself is not the 
figure of St. Paul, and could not have been intended to repre- 
sent such a figure as St. Paul represents himself to have been: 
where he says, ** his bodily presence was weak, and his speech 
contemptible" (though, God forbid that we should think his 
speech was more contemptible than his writings !) and he 
had an inexpressible infirmity in his flesh, which he says 
was ** a messenger of Satan to buffet him," as he is described 
in the Philopatris of Lucian ; on the ground of which I admit 
his real historical existence, as well as in that description of his 
person, acknowledged to be genuine by St. Jerome and St. 
Cyprian, in which he is portrayed as a little pot-bellied, bandy- 
legged, passionate old man, with a squeaking voice, with a 
hooked nose, squinting eyes, a bald head, and full of the king's 
evil, and the grace of God. 



106 THE devil's pulpit. 

Whereas the figure on the pediment, to whose honor the 
edifice is built, presents you at once with all the characteristics 
of Pol, the immortal brother of Castor, as presiding over the 
administration of justice, wearing the judge's robe, and holding 
in his hand the sword of justice, with which he avenged his 
brother Castor's death, and with which he stands before you 
in a presence the most contrary to that of the bandy-legged 
apostle, that could possibly be imagined. 

" Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself; 
An eye like Mars, to conquer and command; 
A statioQ like the herald, Mercury, 
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hilL" 

The cathedral, dedicated to tse honor of the sun, in the star 
Pollux, stands directly in the zenith. 

When the star Pollux is at the meridian, the constellation 
Aries, which is the temple, will be observed rising in the 
east. 

The great star, Spica Virginus, in the hand of Themis, the 
goddess of Justice, holding the scales of September ; or Ceres, 
the goddess of Corn, or Miriam, or the Virgin Mary, for they 
are but different names for one and the self-same constellation, 
is setting in the west. 

And hence the twins. Castor and Pollux, two names for one 
and the self-same constellation, being, at that moment, at the 
zenith, were worshipped, as in a most peculiar sense, presiding 
over the adjudication of equity, and in all courts of law and 
justice. 

In the calendar of Julius Csesar, the sun enters the sign of 
j;e Twins on the 19th of May, w^hich would bring him in the 
star Pollux on the 16th of June. 

Now the Hebrew name of the month of June, is Thomas, 
of whom we are three times told in the gospel of St. 
John, that he was also called Didymus — that word Didymus 
literally signifying a tici?i. And Thomas, one of the twelve 
which is called Didymus, in the gospel allegory, .in call- 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 107 

ing for evidence of the resurrection of Christ, and insisting 
on having proof, and not mere hearsay testimony, exem- 
plifies the physical analogy, which represents the Twins of 
May and June, as presiding over the administration of jus- 
tice. 

Cicero makes a noble appeal to their divinity in their images, 
standing then before his eyes in the Prsetorium, while deliver- 
ing his seventh oration against Verres: — 

*' Vos omnium rerum forensium, consiliorum maximorum, 
legum judiciorumque arbitri et testes, celeberrimo in loco 
prseiorii locati. Castor et Pollux. Teque Ceres et Liber, a 
quibus initia vitse etque victus, legum, morum, mansuetudinis, 
humanitatisexempla hominibus et civiiatibus data ac dispertita 
esse dicuntur." ** Ye, of all forensic matters, of greatest 
counsels, of laws and judgments, arbiters and witnesses, 
Castor and Pollux, placed in the most renowned place of 
the Pr(Btorium ! And thee, Ceres and Bacchus [that is to 
say, Mary and Jesus], from whom, the beginnings of life and 
food, of laws and manners, and examples of gentleness and 
humanity, are said to have been given and distributed to men 
and cities.^'' 

Thus we find that they are, at the close, joined with Ceres 
and Libera, and spoken of as the civilizers of the world : but 
their peculiar province was law and judicature. — Bryant, vol- 
ume ii., page 161. 

" The name Castor, seems to be a compound of Ca-Astor, the 
temple, or place of Astor." 

" Ca-Astor was, by the Greeks, abbreviated into Castor." — 
Bryant. 

Hence so many names of towns in Britain (** among the 
Britons of Phoenician extraction," Bryant, vol. vi., p. 158) 
ending in cester, as Alcester, Chester, Manchester, Dorchester, 
God-man-Chester, Ilchester, Lancaster, Leicester, Gloucester, 
Rochester, Chichester, Cirencester, Worcester — all of them 
distinguished by remains of cathedrals dedicated to the great 
god Castor — i» e. the sun in Germini, as that of London is to 



108 THE devil's pulpit. 

his brother Pol, who is one and self-same deity. As London 
itself was called by the ancient Saxons London-caster, and ab* 
breviated, as so long a word would necessarily be, for the con- 
venience of ordinary utterance : as our St. John's street is called 
Sinjun street. 

The real origin and significancy of the whole word Lon- 
don-caster (as I have explained so often, that no original 
word could ever have consisted of more than one syllable) 
EL — ON — DON — CA — AS — TOR. EL, the sun ; ON, the being ; 
DON, the lord ; ca, the temple ; as, the fire ; tor, the hill, 
would gradually come to be absorbed in Lun-Doncaster, Lun- 
Oncaster, Lunkaster, and Lancaster, which is, to this day, the 
name of the London, or capital city of the great county of 
Lancashire. 

Castor and Pollux, the two Dioscdroi, were considered and 
spoken of as the greatest of all the gods. 

There are altars still extant, which are inscribed Castori et 
PoLLuci Diis Magnis. To Castor and Pollux, the great 
gods, and in the collection of Gruter is a Greek inscrip- 
tion : — 

" Vaios Vai8 A.)(apvsvs \epevg y€voix£vos Bewv MeyaXcoj; AioaKVpcDV 

" Caius, the son of Caius, of Achamia, having become a priest 
of the great gods, the Dioscuroi, Cabiri." 

The form of swearing ^de-Pol — that is, Per JEdem Pollu-* 
cis : by Pol's cathedral : indicates, what was indeed the fact, 
that there was something very remarkable in the size and 
magnitude of Pol's cathedral. An analogy, still preserved, in 
the relative size of the Pol's cathedral, continued to this day, 
under the variously-sounded, but self-same meaning, name 
of St, PauPs cathedral. The greatest gods seemed naturally 
to require the greatest churches. And it was not a greater 
liberty in language to change the name of the church, than to 
change the name of the deity to whom it was dedicated. And 
PoVs cathedral, the common utterance for the ** temple of 
Pollus," became gradually to be pronounced St, PauVs cathe- 



THE devil's pulpit. 109 

draly without any note or date, or trace of human observance, 
when or how the change took place : and for this reason, 
sirs (which I think may pass for a pretty good one), that there 
has really never been any change at all, and it is to all intents 
and purposes the temple of Pollux still — that is, the temple 
of the Sun, considered and worshipped, as in Pollux, the 
more easterly, and the brighter of the Twins of May. It was 
a bishop's see for three centuries before the religion of this 
country acquired the name of Christianity. The bishops of 
London and of York were present in the council of Aries, in 
France, held under Constantine, in the year 314, disputing 
about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, though you will find 
that Christianity had not been preached in England, before 
the arrival of the monk Auguslin, in the year 597 — that is, 
283 years after that council. The name of either of the 
Twins being used indifferently, the one for the other, the 
temple of Castor, or Pol's temple, signified but one and the 
self-same temple. And its extraordinary magnitude is ac- 
counted for, not merely by the analogy, that the gods Cabiri 
and Dioscuroi, the sons of Jove — that is, these Twins, were 
distinguished as the greatest of all the gods; but they were 
the great guardians of property, and their temple was the 
general banking-house, to which all persons of wealth com- 
mitted their treasures, as to places of the greatest security : 
from which, all the profits of banking, accrued to the dean 
and chapter, and readily supplied the enormous expenditure 
which such an enormous pile of building would require, either 
for its structure or repair, as we may learn from Juvenal, in 
those lines : — 

" ^rata multus in area, 
Fiscus, et ad vigilem ponendi Castora nummi." 

** A great revenue in the brazen chest, kept at the temple of 
Castor, the guardian of intrusted property.^'' 

Hence, the sense of the rebuke put into the mouth of the 



no THE devil's PULPIT. 

Christ of the Gospel, against those who used to say, " Whoso* 
ever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing ;" the universal 
form of common swearing being ^depol — that is, per sedem 
Pollucis, by Poll's church, ^' but whosoever shall swear by 
the gold of the temple, he is a debtor" — that is, he makes 
a draft upon the bank, and ought to have effects there, to 
honor it. 

The Twins themselves, both Castor and Poll, are each of 
them names of but one and the self-same deity, the Sun ; and 
from their representation, as two brothers, originated the fable 
of the union of the divine and human nature in the person of 
Christ : Poll being the divine. Castor the human part of the 
constellation. 

They are uterine brothers only — that is, brothers by the 
same mother ; Pol, the son of Jupiter and Lseda ; Castor, 
the son of Lseda, by her proper husband, the Joseph of the 
gospel. 

Hence, the dean and chapter of Paul's or Poll's cathe- 
dral, will always be sticklers for the divinity of Christ ; 
while Arrian informs us, that Alexander the Great sacri- 
ficed to Castor and Pollux, on the day consecrated to Her- 
cules, considering Hercules, and Castor and Poll, as the same 
deity. 

And that he was perfectly orthodox in so doing, our Poll's 
cathedral is to this day a proof; for if you will but go into 
St. Paul's — that is, into St. Poll's churchyard, and stand with 
your face westward, on the northern side ; and you shall have 
the sign of the bible and crown of Rivington's shop, the 
shop for the sale of books of Christian knowledge, in no other 
shape than that of the most perfect orthodoxy on your right ; 
and immediately on the point of the pediment over the en- 
trance of the edifice, stands the statue of Hercules, with 
his well-known characteristic club ; and the skin of the Cleo- 
nsean lion. 

I should only like to learn how a man could need better 
information as to whom the house belongs, than that he 



THE DEVIL ^S PULPIT. Ill 

would infer from reading the naaster's name upon the door ? 
Or how could a worshipper of Hercules belter know the tern, 
pie of Hercules, than by seeing Hercules himself in full pos 
session of it ? 

But pass through the edifice: from the north, go out at the 
southern entrance ; and, on the pediment over that entrance, 
you shall see the self-same Hercules, under the Greek name 
of Andrew, which never could have been the name of a Jew, 
signifying the strong man, holding a Saltier cross — that is, a 
cross in the shape of an X, a goniometer, or double pair of 
compasses, exhibiting the precise angle which the sun made 
at his two crossings of the equator, at the time when this 
beautiful form of sun-worship was first instituted. 

That angle being now twenty-three degrees, and twenty, 
eight minutes, compared to what it was when observed 
by Ptolemy, is shown to be gradually decreasing, at the rate 
of one minute in a hundred years. So that in one hundred 
ana forty thousand years, it will be shut up entirely ; the 
ecliptic will coincide with the equator, and there will con- 
sequently be an equal length of day and night over all the 
earth, and all the year round, constituting the reign of righte- 
ousness, or a physical millenium, which our Christian blun- 
derers have so absurdly anticipated in a moral sense. And 
St. Andrew, you will observe, stands with this great goniome- 
ter, or measure of the sun's angle upon the equator behind 
his back, in significant indication that what is to be seen 
is a crucified man, but what is to be understood is in the 
back-ground. 

But it is not in one; it is not within the compass of 
very many discourses, that I can hope to compress the mer- 
it of this great cumulative argument, this irrefutable and un- 
answerable demonstration of the utterly fabulous character 
of everything that hath ever borne the name of religion among 
men. 

And sure there can be no better way of exposing falsehood 
than by setting it side by side with truth, and bidding you, with 



112 THE devil's pulpit. 

the eyes of your own reason, to look on this picture and on 
this : this method I have pursued in innumerable illustrations, 
which my regular hearers remember with full conviction : this, 
m a thousand illustrations yet to come, I shall continue to 
pursue. 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRA^.. 



THE DETIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT JS:'— Allan Cunningham. ' 

THE UNJUST JUDGE: 

A ISKKMON. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, JANUARY 30, 1831. 



^ jind he spake a parable unto them to this end, thai men ought 
always to pray, and not to faint ; saying, ^ There was in a city 
a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man : And 
there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, say- 
ing, * Avenge me of mine adversary,' And he would not for 
a while : but afterward he said within himself, ' Though 1 
fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth 
me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.' '' — 
Luke xviii. 1. 



Well, sirs! This is gospel. It is an exhibition of the di- 
vine character, as purporting to be set forth by Christ himself. 
It is the parable of the Unjust Judge ; and it is delivered to us, 
under that solemn command of Christ: ^^ Hear what the unjust 
judge saith.''^ 

At the same time, it must be borne in remembrance, that this 
parable is but one of a pair. There is a fellow to it, to be 
placed side by side with this parable (in the 16th chapter of 

8 



114 THE devil's pulpit. 

this gospel) which bears the title of the Parable of the Unjust 
Steward. In the two together, we have an harmonious ex- 
hibition of what, on gospel principles, the character of God is 
supposed to be, which is that of an unjust judge ; and what the 
character of a Christian is supposed to be, which is that of an 
unjust steward: a pretty brace of game, to be dished up to the 
relish of our moral appetite. 

The unjust steward robbed his master; and the Lord com' 
mended the unjust steward because he had done wisely. And 
the unjust judge gave sentence without hearing cause, ** ana 
hanged the guiltless, rather than eat his mutton cold ;'* saying, 
*' I care neither for God nor man." ''And the Lord said, ' Hear 
what the unjust judge saith.^ " And so say I ; for God's sake, 
for truth and virtue's sake, '' Hear what the unjust judge saith." 
And wonder no more at the state of morals in a Christian country, 
when these are the examples and exhibitions of moral perfection 
which Christianity itself has consecrated. For those who are in 
the higher ranks of life, our aristocrats, lords, and hereditary 
masters, the most god-like example proposed to their observance, 
is to teach them to be indifferent to the petitions of the people, 
to act from no considerations but of their own convenience ; 
and if ever they do attend to a petition, never to think of the 
right or the reason of it, but only to get rid of the bother. 
For those who are in inferior and dependent situations, the 
proposed example is, that they should rob their employers, and 
cheat and swindle so dexterously, that if they should ultimately 
be found out, their employers themselves should own they did 
it cleverly. 

And this is gospel morality ! the finest system of morals 
that was ever delivered to man ! The purest, the sublimest, 
the '* ivhere will you find anything equal to the morals of the 
gospel,^^ calculated to make us just exactly what we are — a 
holy nation, a peculiar people, zealous of good works; and, as 
far as this sort of morality has influence in society, society 
must necessarily and eternally consist of a set of lordly and 
oppressive tyrants, having no sympathies with the people, and 
no motive of action, but their own convenience, in the higher 



THE DEVIL S PULPIT. 11 5 

ranks ; and a set of cunning rogues, Isaacs, cheats, Jiars, and 
slaves, in the lower. 

Look, then, upon this picture, and on this : I bring before you 
the master-villain this evening ; and shall serve you up the man 
on some other occasion. 

You have heard, and have, I guess, often read for yourselves, 
the parable of the Unjust Judge. The question is, is such an 
exhibition of character, or such a moral lesson, v^hatever the 
morality of it be, to come in at one ear, and go out at the other, 
and so no harm done ? or, shall we be rational ? Shall words 
have meaning to them ? and shall we look at the picture which 
our priests have set before us, in its own ugly face? By your 
patience I will do so, and shall lead your convictions; first, to 
its critical ; second, to its moral : and, lastly, to its political 
aspects. 

First, of the critical view on't. 

But hold ! of criticism, I would recommend all good Chris- 
tians to be innocent ; for the faculty of criticism is fatal to 
Christianity. The gospel will bear anything else, but it will 
not bear to be criticised: the moment you begin to criticise, it's 
a farewell to faith. There's no knowing where it will lead you 
to : for only see now what helter-skelter comes on't, the moment 
you take up the besom of criticism. 

^^ And he spake a parable to them.'''' Avast, cries criticism: 
Who spake to whom? where? when? how? and what the 
devil is a parable ? '-'- A parahle to this end, that men ought 
always to pray, and not to faint, ^'' 

And what's the use of always praying? and what's to make 
men faint when they leave off praying? All right and straight 
forward enough, you see, while you sit in the booby hutch at 
church or chapel, and never dream of asking yourself, or any- 
body else, what it means: but discovering to the startled atten- 
tion of the critical mind, the frightful truth, that a parable, to 
such an end as, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint, 
could by no possibility have been delivered, either by God or 
n^an, before that end was an end, which priestcraft had to serve, 
and that notion of everlasting praying was in full vogue among 



116 THE DETTl's PTTLPIT. 

men ; Avhich determines the period of the darkest day of the 
dark ages, and of the full swing of Popish superstition of 
'* monks and hennits, coenobites and friars ;" ** black friars and 
gray, and all their trumpery." 

Neither could it have been delivered or devised before the 
times of the general prevalence of. that most wicked notion of 
election and reprobation, since its whole argument is the argu- 
ment a fortiori, that God would avenge his own elect, and 
that, without any considerationof the justice of their cause, but 
merely because they were his elect : as our judges of the present 
day, whose characters are bound by these evangelical examples, 
would convict an infidel, not because they had any evidence 
of guilt against him; not because they had any argument to 
show that he wasn't as good-hearted a man as ever breathed ; 
but merely because he was an infidel. The infidel lamb that 
should be accused of making the stream run backward, would 
be sure to be found guilty, where the Christian wolf did try him : 
O Christian justie'e, how dost thou shine forth, when the pro- 
prietor of the otber shop gives verdict against ours : when the 
sworn knave, that has the letting of the booby-hutches in his 
own chapel, finds the rotunda guilty ! 'Tis Chxisimn justice. 

A further indication of time is betrayed to us in that awk- 
wardly dropt stitch: ''Nevertheless, when the Son of man 
Cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth ;" an admission as 
clear as the day, that whoever the Son of man was, he was not 
then upon earth ; and that, consequently, the speaker in the 
text could not be he. Then who the devil ivas, or is, this Son 
of man ? None of your clergy, in church or chapel, can tell 
you: I can. They don't know him: I do. I have seen him 
myself; I know him very well, and all his family; and I can 
show him you. 

And in aomg this, I haven't to beseech you to see with the 
eye of faith, to look to the things which are invisible. I have 
no occasion to draw upon your credulity, and to entreat you to 
believe me, as my dear hearers, least of all to stultify you out 
of the exercise of your reason, with that villanous denunciation, 
^' He that believeth not, shall be damned.^'' Onlv be men, and 



THE devil's pulpit. 117 

exercise your rational faculties as men : give me no credit at 
all: think that I am deceiving you, as long as you can think so:, 
withhold your conviction, to the last struggle that with reason 
it can be withheld ; and it shall be mine at last, by right of 
conquest. 

As thus, sirs : where is't that this Son of man, in the show- 
ing of the text itself, was to be seen ? " Coming in the clouds 
of Heaven:'''' then, in the name of God, where else should we 
look for him, but in the clouds of Heaven : and when is he to 
be seen coming in the clouds of Heaven ? Immediately after 
the days shall have been shortened^ is the answer to that ques- 
tion : then ! then immediately after the days shall have been 
shortened. ^^ But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye 
into another : for verily, I say unto you, ye shall not have gone 
over the cities of Israel till the Son of man he corned Matt. x. 
23. Here, again, you have the speaker, Christ, speaking of 
another, as contradistinguished from himself, who was not then 
come, but who was to come, before the saints should have gone 
over the cities of Israel. Gone over the cities ? Gone over 
them, sirs — a nn reXearjre — ** Ye shall not have finished them,^^ 
And who and what 'were these, who were to flee from city to 
city, but not to finish all the cities before the coming of the 
Son of man. And what sort of cities were they, which these 
persecuted saints were to go over, but so as never to go beyond 
them ; never to be out of one or other of these cities ? 

Or as, again, this mystical astrologer saith to Nicodemus : 
** No man hath ascended up into Heaven, but he that came 
down from Heaven, even the Son of man, which is in Heaven." 
**0,"say your evangelical preachers, the most ignorant men, 
of their own profession, on the face of the earth, ** It was our 
blessed Savior himself, who was the Son of man ; and while he 
was conversing with Nicodemus, he was in Heaven at the same 
time." So ! a very clever trick, that, like St. Francis Xavier, 
he contrived to be aboard two ships at once. 

But if our evangelical preachers would leave their choused 

and insulted hearers in possession of the faculty of reason, all 

(\t -«p«on that ever was in the world would say, that it was 



118 THE devil's pulpit. 

Utterly preposterous for a person to have spoken of the Son of 
man, who is in Heaven, who had meant that it was himself 
sitting in his arm-chair, and smoking his pipe all the while, 
that was in Heaven. And that if it was in Heaven, that this 
Son of man was, and in the clouds of Heaven that he was to 
make his appearance, it must be nowhere else but in the 
Heavens, even in the visible cloudy Heavens, that we are to 
look for him ? 

But we have a further clue to this mystery, which unravels 
it beyond the mistake of ignorance itself The epithet, the Son 
of man, is found accompanied with a term, absolutely and 
literally defining what was meant by the Son of man. It is, 
" The sign of the Son of man in Heaven," Matt. xxiv. 30. 
Now there are but twelve signs in Heaven ; and this sign of the 
Son of man is further defined as coming immediately after the 
end of the world. Then, of course, it could come nowhere else, 
but at the beginning of the new world. 

But this sign of the Son of man is still further defined, as 
having days in it, or in him, or of and concerning, or pertaining 
to him or it. 

" The days come when ye shall desire to see one of the days 
of the Son of man, and shall not see it." Luke xvii. 

But, what is more, this self-same Son of man seems to have 
been as well-known under the Old Testament as under the 
New. As the prophet Daniel saw him, when and where, and 
as exactly as you may, every one of you see him yourselves. 
''In the visions of the night.''^ Daniel vii. Attend ye then to 
the visions of the night — that is, study astronomy, look on the 
immense expanse of the starry Heavens, and there you shall 
see the sign of the Son of man — that is, the sign Aquarius, the 
sign of January, which you can not go over the twelve cities 
of Israel without coming to, which comes immediately after the 
days have been shortened ; which made us desire to see one of 
the days of the Son of man, when they are getting longer again: 
which comes immediately after the end of the world, which 
ends in December, and which opens the new year — i, e,, the 
new Heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- 



THE devil's pulpit. 119 

ness. And here, too, have we the meaning of those eternal 
riddles about eating the flesh, and drinking the blood, oi' the 
Son of man, which, from the Ganges to the Nile, from the Nile 
to the Thames, through Braminical, Egyptian, pagan, and 
Christian superstition, was the universal catachresis of language, 
for a mystery of which the meaning was never any more than 
that ordinary eating and drinking of the fruits of the earth, 
which flow to us Irom the fructifying urn of Aquarius. It be- 
ing thus a natural, and not a supernatural truth, that, unless 
we eat the flesh, and drink the hlood of the Son of many we have 
no life in us. 

And what is a parable ? but a something represented to the • 
imagination, which has no reality; it is a throw by the side, 
or apart from the line of truth, into the regions of fancy and 
fiction. There are forty-four parables in the course of the four 
gospels. Now what is the nature of a work that contains ad- 
mitted parables, but evidently a work of fiction and imagina- 
tion — a work m which one thing is said, and another thing 
is meant. 

But parables, our parsons tell us, are easy and familiar modes 
of instructions, graciously adopted by our blessed Savior, in 
order to convey his divine lessons more clearly to the mind. 
Are they so ? and did he therefore speak in parables in order 

to assist our comprehension, and to enable us to . *' 

yes !" the parsons say. Only it's rather awkward, when we 
find himself saying, ** Therefore speak I to them in parables ; 
that seeing they may see, and not perceive : and hearing they 
may hear, but not understand,''^ 

0, what a clear way of conveying divine instruction to the 
mind ! This accounts for Christians being such wonderfully 
clever boys as they all are. The greater proficiency they make 
in the study of divine things, the less they know of 'em : the 
more they get on, the more they get off": they go to school to 
learn ignorance: they'd have known more if they had been 
taught less. So that, should the society for promoting Chrisiian 
knowledge have all the success they aim at, we shall be para- 
bolized, till we shall " know nothing but Jesus Christ, and 



120 THE devil's pulpit. 

him crucified ;" and nobody will ever again get into danger of 
hell-fire, for calling his brother a fool. 

This parabolical, hyperbolical, or rather diabolical, mode of 
conveying instruction, once adopted, all notion of history, or of 
historical fidelity, is at a sheer end for ever. Here are persons, 
speeches, actions, and characters, set before us, with as much 
relief, distinctiveness, and apparent reality, as the broadest 
features of the gospel narrative ; and yet all this distinctiveness, 
apparent reality, and even historical probability, notwithstand- 
ing, all is the pure creation of imagination and fancy, and there 
is not a word of truth in it from beginning to end. 

And will any man say, then, that there is any redeeming 
reason whatever, why the whole gospel narrative should not 
itself be held to be altogether a parable ; of the same parabol- 
ical and diabolical character, as so much and so very many parts 
of it must necessarily be admitted to be ? 

At any rate, we have m the case before us, two very different 
and distinct authorities in challenge upon our credence ; for, 
first, we have the Lord, whoever he was, telling us a tale, 
highly probable in itself, which nothing hinders from being 
true, and telling it as a truth ; while the reporter of the tale 
obtrudes his impertinent judgment to tell us that it was not 
true, but a parable : and whereas, the speaker of the parable 
(if a parable it were) has not told us what the end or gist of 
it was : the reporter has taken upon himself to supply this 
deficiency, and to give it a moral, which may have been the 
very reverse of the moral intended. 

For had the gist on't been, to hold up the character of the 
unjust judge to our hatred, rather than to our respect, as the 
exhibition of the character of a devil, rather than of a God : 
and had the moral on't been just exactly that men who fall 
under the government of such unjust governors, as heed not 
the justice and reasonableness of the people's petitions, but act 
only from caprice and tyranny, ought not to pray always, but to 
pray no more; but take the power into their own hands, play 
the Paris game upon their ruthless oppressors, and hurl them 
from their forfeited authority ; would not that have been as 



THE devil's pulpit. 121 

good a moral, as honorable to the moralist, and as instructive 
to ourselves ? So much for the critical view of the parable. 
We come now to the moral, which inspired impertinence has 
obliged us to submit to. 

The moral on'i is, to represent the character of God as that 
of an unjust judge, restrained by no considerations of justice, 
equity, mercy, or truth, but chuckling and glorying in avowed 
injustice and most flagrant wickedness : " Now, though I fear 
not God, nor regard man: yet because this widow trouhleth me, 
I will avenge her of her adversary, lest by her continual com- 
ing she weary me." 

There is a Lord God for you ! And shall we wonder that 
our gods and lords on earth, with this example of the divine 
character before them, should act on the same principle, and 
deem it most god-like and divine, to be indifferent to the rights 
or wrongs of the people, and act only in consultation of their 
own idleness, caprice, or humor. 

Had a man sat down to try to hit out a scheme for making 
tyrants of one half of mankind, and slaves of the other, to 
make the world as wicked as wickedness itself, and to set up 
priestly power on the overthrow of everything that is noble in 
sentiment, just in principle, or generous in action ; could he 
have hit on anything else so mischievous, so wicked, as this. 

But the moral on't is, ** that men ought always to pray, and 
not to faint:'''' to pray, as the apostle says, ''without ceasing^^ — 
to keep it up day and night, to wrestle in prayer, to bother the 
everlasting God out of his everlasting life ; not to trust to his. 
goodness, his equity, his wisdom, or any of that sort of stuff; 
but to stick to him, to give it him, to gripe, to tug at him, to 
sicken him, till at last, in self-defence, the prayer-wearied tyrant 
will start, as if the fleas bit him, from his uneasy couch, and 
comply with their desires, for no other reason than because, as he 
might say. Damn the fleas, how they bite! Nor is this any sort 
of caricature: I wish, for humanity's sake, that it were so. 
But 'lis the very language of the prayer of the patriarch Jacob, 
** I will not let thee go unless thou bless ?ne,''^ And in the catho- 
"'• naanual of devotion are the words of a prayer, than which 



122 THE DEVIL S PULPIT. 

no words of prayer were ever more reasonable : ** Lcrd God 
if iliine own goodness will not induce thee to have mercy upon 
me, my importunity shall." 

You see, after all, that there's a way of getting the better of 
Omnipotence ; though he stands out a long while, he'll strike 
at last. *' And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry 
day and night unto him,^^ says this divine teacher. And sh^U 
men on earth ihink they can employ their time better than thfe 
angels in Heaven spend their eternity ; or, than the cherubims 
and seraphims which continually do cry : or than those pretty 
dogs with four faces, which are before the throne of God, and 
rest not day nor night, crying, "holy, holy, holy." 

Nay, and 'tis none other than the gravest of our protestant 
divines, who most gravely assure us, that the prayers of Chris- 
tians would never be unanswered if they were but continued 
long enough. Many a good batch of bread has been spoiled by 
letting the oven get cool too soon; and many an effectual fer- 
vent prayer has been rendered ineffectual by being given up 
just at the last moment — when one other long pull, and a strong 
pull, and a pull altogether, would have pulled the old fellow 
into compliance. He can stand two or three importunate 
widows, single-handed ; but when two or three are gathered 
together in his name, they get him in the midst of them, and 
do what tliey please with him. 

But the most frightful part of the moral is, that it is never 
necessary that what is prayed for should be anything reasonable 
for God to grant, or that there should be any sort of merit or 
desert on the part of the person who prays : but always, and 
in* every instance, just exactly the contrary. The more wicked 
the petitioner is, the more acceptable to God ; and the more un- 
reasonable and unjust the petition, the more likely to be granted. 

Let the greatest murderer and thief on earth, ask God to give 
him a crown of glory, and an eternity of happiness, 'twould be 
granted in a trice ; but should an honest man only ask for change 
for a shilling, he'd see him damned first. 

So the old woman, the importunate widow, only wanted a 
bit of vengeance — she wanted to pay off an old grudge, to have 



II 



THE devil's ptjlpit. 123 

her spite out against somebody that had displeased her. She 
had only to pester the Almighty Judge with her everlasting 
*^ Avenge me of mine adversary ;^'' and the Almighty, without 
mquiring what her adversary had done, or what he might say 
in his defence, has him hanged, off at hand, to find out, per- 
haps, that it was a lie that the woman told him, after the 
execution. 

Thus the apostle lays it down as a rule, that if any man sin, 
we have an advocate with the Father. Let him pick pockets, 
let him cut throats, or so : and 

" There is a fountain filled with blood. 
Drawn from ImmanuePs veins ; 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood. 
Wash out their guilty stains. ^^ 

But if he be no sinner — if he be an honest man, and conduct 
himself with moral propriety, he might as well whistle to the 
winds, as say a prayer either 'o God or devil. 

So, in the showing of the story (such as it is), Jesus Christ i 
the righteous, might continue all night in prayer to God, and 
prayed in agony, but prayed in vain, " Because he had done no 
violence, neither was deceit found in his mouih.^'^ But Saul of 
Tarsus, the most deceitful thief and murderous villain that ever 
escaped unhanged, the chief of sinners, a blasphemer, a perse- 
cutor, and injurious, had only to pop on his marrow-bones, and 
all the miraculous machinery of Heaven was put into instant 
requisition. The Almighty jumped out of bed in the middle of 
the night, and called up all the family of Heaven, with his hue 
and cry : " Arise, go into straight- street, and inquire in the house 
of Simon the tanner for one Saul of Tarsus for behold he 
vrayethy Old cut-throat, ye see, that exquisite villain, the 
chief of sinners, had easy work on't. 

But imagine your man of prayer, depict him in his true colors, 

at his prayers, and in the act of prayer, with all his blushing 

honors thick upon him, and then say how such an act can be 

compatible with moral honesty, or how such a man can be en- 

uled to be deemed an honest man. 



i24 THE devil's PrLPlT. 

He either expects some advantage to accrue to himself from 
his prayer, or he does not. If not, he is an idiot and a fool, and 
acts without a motive ; but if he expects to be the gainer by it, 
how is that gain achieved, but by means ? for the like of which 
in any other case, a man would deserve to be scouted as a 
black-leg, and a cheat, from all honorable society. 

He worms and writhes his dirty way on hands and knees 
into the presence-chamber of Omnipotence : he gets on the 
weak side of the Almighty fool, tickles his everlasting beard, 
whispers the selfish purpose of his soul; and, as there must 
always be a little praise mingled with prayer, though it's not 
intended, I suppose, for flattery, only it's to tell him what a 
good God he is, and how infinitely wise, and just, and holy, 
and what pure eyes he has got, and that he is sure not to die, 
and that his kingdom will last for ever and ever. And the old 
gentleman is done over, he's caught, he's in for it, and his Om- 
nipotence is at their service."^ 

An honest man would say, ^' I want nothing that is to beg of 
by kneeling. Set your heaven open, and I'll be there, when 
honest men are there. But for your strait gate, and your 
narrow way, your passages for beggars, pimps, and parasites — 
[ choose damnation rather." And what is the spirit, which 
your man of prayer, your strait-gate cringer, and your nar- 
row-way soul, will be likely to bring into the commerce of 
social life ? Who is to expect resistance to tyranny, or con- 
currence in the promotion of any general good, from the sneak- 
ing psalm-singing cowards and slaves, whose very devotion 
itself is a villany ; and whose highest notion of right and 
righteousness is, that they will pull their own beggarly souls 

* A prayer granted, implies, that something is done in consequence 
of the prayer, which otherwise would not have been dope. Which is 
the directing mind ? where is the spring of action ? who the Almighty, 
then ? who but the praying knave himself, who, with all his hum^ 
ble sinrnership, and lie in the dust before God, meekly suggests how 
he might manage his universe better : and shows him how he oughi 
to act. O, what a modest creature is a Christian. 



THE devil's pulpit. 125 

into Abraham's bosom ; and then not reach a drop of water to 
a gentleman in hell-fire. 

And mark, too, the wicked fraud, the cheat and the dishonor 
of the compact, between the man of prayer and his familiar 
spirit, whom he calls God, It is of the same nature as the 
engagement between a quack doctor and his hireling patients, 
whom he engages to puff off his nostrums, to swear how bad 
they were before they took the balm of Gilead, and what won- 
derful benefits tliey had experienced from it. It is of the same 
nature as the secret understanding between the auctioneer and 
the sweeteners, as they are called, who are the bait set in the 
fool-trap, to make you believe that the goods are worth ten 
times their value ; and if you don't make haste, you'll lose the 
best bargains that ever were in the world. There's the jewel 
of salvation — for next skin to nothing — there's the pearl of 
great price, going for sixpence. And what would it profit a 
man, say they, should he gain the whole world, and lose such 
a bag-full of moonshine, as they'll sell him at the gospel-shop 

'^ Let us,^^ say they, ^^ as new-born habes, desire the sincere 
milk of the word, that we may grow thereby^ Though, when 
we've grown a very little, we begin to perceive that the sincere 
milk of the word, has a devilish blue look, and that 'tis not th« 
spiritual babes, but the spiritual nurses, that get the cream of it 

And here I can not but glance at a contrivance of those spin: 
ual nurses, who dish up the meat for babes, at all our Bible as 
sociation, and Jew-converting, and gospel-propagating socie 
ties : when the funds of the society run low, and the collectiog 
is likely to leave 'em minus — they always come it with a — 

*^ But ah 1 my brethren, ii^s your prayers that the society de^ 
sires. If you have nothing else to give, you can give us youi 
prayers. It isn't your money that we look for, but your prayers, 
God forbid that we should think his cause depended on an arm 
of flesh,'*'' And there I say the babes and sucklings of the gos- 
pel, thereh disinterestedness for you ! Where will you find 
infidels that will act from such disinterested motives ? Fd give 
iXiem a shilling, if 'twas tiie last I had in the world, because I 
set that they a^^e not greedy. Why. ay! And they see, too, 



126 THE devil's pulpit. 

that when once they can make a man fool enough to prattle to 
the sky-larks, there's a good chance that he'll be fool enough 
for anything. 

An honest prayer is all I ask for ! produce me one single 
instance of an honest prayer ! and then I'll say, *' 'tis possible 
that a man who says his prayers may be an honest fool." 

But when I see contrivance, trick, and management, between 
God and man : when I see the man who puts himself under the 
protection of Omnipotence, putting Omnipotence under his pro- 
tection in turn, and that the bargain between them is, if you'll 
serve me, I'll serve you: you get me out of my scrapes, and /'// 
get you out of yours. What can I think, but that the man is 
more knave than fool : and that if the God were anything more 
than a figment of the man's conceit, they are but two knaves 
laying their heads together, to chouse and cheat mankind. 
And is't not such a provision to get Omnipotence out of the 
scrape, and to prevent his impotence and weakness from being 
found out, when the petitioner petitions for nothing ; but, with 
that swindling, shirking, saving clause, in submission to the 
divine will ; and so asks for nothing, that it will cost Omnipo- 
tence any trouble to grant. Spiritual joys, grace in the soul, 
and everlasting crowns in heaven, are so much cheaper than 
bread and cheese and potatoes, that the sanctified knave always 
provides for the glory of God, by not asking him for anything, 
which, being of a nature to admit of proof, whether it had been 
granted or not, might prove that he stood not quite so high in 
court favor as he pretended, and that his divine crony, his 
God, that he has to fly to when he is in trouble — thinks, if he 
think at all, that he's an impudent thief for his pains. 

The poets Juvenal and Horace, and the moralist jEsop, have 
led our ideas to the only instances, that I remember, with the 
exception of the prayer of Jacob, in which the arrangement is 
perfectly fair and honorable: the man, a poor benighted pagan, 
to be sure, got grace, or rather good sense, at last, to wrestle in 
prayer with his wooden Jehovah, to the effect: — 

*' O, Almighty and everlasting God, maker of heaven and 
earth, and of all things visible and invisible: all my life long 



THE devil's pulpit. 127 

have I been worshipping and adoring your Divine Majesty, and 
calling you all the infinitely wise gods, and holys, and ah 
mighiys, and everlastings, and infinites, that I could find big 
words iHhe dictionary to call you hy. And I and my poor 
family are only gettingworse and worsCy till nothing but starva- 
tion stares us in the face. Now, my Lord God, though you can 
live without eating and drinking, I can't : though you have no 
bowels, I have ? Will you then advance me a mortgage on 
that heavenly inheritance which you have promised us ? Say 
but a shilling, sixpence, a penny, a halfpenny per cent, to save 
us from starvation.^^ 

The prayer was answered just as all other prayers are an- 
swered. And the indignant man, awaking to the reason of a 
man, seized the priest's puppet by the leg, and dashed him to 
pieces. Away went rags and righteousness — away went grace 
and grease — away went poverty and prayer ! When he got the 
God out of his house, he got the devil out of his house : the 
ducats, dollars, crowns, and half-crowns, rolled about him : the 
bacon, bread, and beef, took the place in the cupboard of bibles 
and prayer-books. And the parsons told the people never to 
go near that profane, wicked man, who, pointing to his well- 
clothed wife, and well-fed children, told the parsons, ** We've 
no more need of your spiritual physic : You may let the booby 
hutch. 

To those who can guess the moral of the fable, the politic, 
or political intention of the parable, which is the exact reverse 
of it in every respect, will be easy. The one is a generous ef- 
lort to undeceive and disabuse a priest-ridden and gospel-gam- 
moned people, by some great moralist, whose name, could it 
be ascertained, would deserve to be enwreathed in the grateful 
remembrance of the whole human species. The other is some 
equally anonymous priestly villain's priestly plot to degrade, to 
debase, and to destroy, every spark of nobleness, and every 
capability of a noble resentment, which princes, priests, and 
oppressors, have to fear in man ; and to make us everlasting 
petitioners, and patient submitters to all the wrongs and cruel- 
ties that princely power and priestly pride shall put on us. 



128 THE devil's pulpit. 

If men ought always to pray, here's a pretty praying trade 
for a set of idle lubberly thieves, who find praying easier than 
working ; and the millions who couldn't possibly continue their 
existence if they were always at it theniseives, naust be pinched 
of their honest earnings to pay the monkish knaves to pray for 
them. And thus, a mystical importance is attached to a set of 
gourmands, and big bellies, who could make themselves of im- 
portance by no other means. 

And while the poor man is driven to turn his talent from one 
art to another, and finds every inch of ground on which he 
might struggle for a living, taken from him by the encroach- 
ment of machinery — while every article of human apparel is 
got up by machinery — shoes, stockings, hats, and gloves, all 
by machinery — printing, inking, and almost thinking, by ma- 
chinery — yet no machinery has been introduced into our coun- 
try to take the parsons' job out of their hands : though the use 
of machinery, in this way, would save the nation the clear sum 
oi nine millions nine hundred and twenty thousand a year, and 
do the work much more neatly. 



II 

II 



END OF THE DISCOilHSSfi; (^N THE UNJUST JUDGE. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— Allan Cunningham. 

VIRGO PARITURA: 

A SERMON, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, FEBRUARY 6, 1831. 



In the second article of our holy church's most holy creed, 
tilsely called the apostle's creed, are these words : — 

" And in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was cou' 
ceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." 

The sentence is governed in the construction by the initial 
verb, / believe — in Latin, credo ; whence the whole matter 
which follows is called the creed. And the credulous person, 
giving credence to this creed, professes himself to believe, or 
take for sooth and truth, every article contained in this creed ; 
the whole number of articles being twelve, in honor of the 
twelve patriarchs, in honor of the twelve tribes of Israel, in 
honor of the twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, in honor 
of the twelve pillars of the temple of Heliopolis, in honor of 
twelve altars of Janus, in honor of the twelve labors of Hercules, 
in honor of the twelve shields of Mars, in honor of the twelve 
mansions of the moon, in honor of the twelve great gods, in 
honor of the twelve great apostles, in honor of the twelve 
great angels in Heaven, in honor of the twelve great rivers in 
Hell, in honor of the twelve rays of the Sun, in honor of the 

9 



130 THE devil's pulpit. 

twelve months of the year, in honor of everything that was 
reckoned by twelves — but not in honor of one single reason. 

1 must, for the present inquiry, beg to su-spend your curiosity 
upon the nail of vulgar apprehension, as to the '' And in Jesus 
Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by *he Holy 

Ghost, born of the^^ . Let all that remain — in sti tu quo — 

as it did, or as it may in any mind, while we confine our inquiry 
exclusively to the Virgin Mary. 

Who was the Virgin Mary ? z. e. 

Who was she when she was at home ? 

Where was she born ? 

How did she live ? 

Where did she die ? 

Where did she come from? 

Where did she go to ? 

Why was she a virgin ? 

Why was her name Mary ? 

What does the name Mary mean ? 

What is she to us ? 

What are we to her ? 

Why was it that we are so expressly and emphatically told 
(Luke i. 26), that it was in the sixth month that she received 
the visit of the angel Gabriel : the sixth month, reckoning 
March the first, being, as we all know, the month of August? 

Why was this Virgin Mary espoused to a man ? 

Why was that man's name Joseph ? 

Why was he of the house of David ? 

Why did the blessed virgin arise in those days, which were 
in that sixth month ? 

Why did she go into the hill country? 

Why was that city of Juda, in which she appeared, situated 
m the hill country ? 

And when she appeared in that city of Juda, which was 
situated in the hill country— why did she say that God had re- 
garded that low estate of his hand-maiden? and why should 
the hand-maid of the Lord have ever been in a low estate ? 

Why did she say that she was his HAND-maiden, not mean- 



THE DEVIL S PULPIT. 1 31 

ing (as God forbid we should ihink that she could mean) his 
handy-maiden : but yet not his foot-maiden, nor his head-maid- 
en, nor anything else but his hand-maiden? 

Why did she say that he had put down the mighty from their 
seats, and exalted them of low degree ? 

Why did she talk about the hungry being filled with good 
things, and the rich being sent empty away ? — such revolution- 
ary and seditious language as, had it been thrown out to the 
agricultural laborers of the present day, would have exposed 
her to two years' imprisonment in the Compter prison of this 
city, to pay a fine of 200/. to the king, and to be further bound 
in securities of 1,000/., to be of good behavior for ten years to 
come, and to be further imprisoned till such fine shall be paid, 
and such sureties found ! 

Why did she say that all generations should call her blessed? 

Why is it that no historical record whatever — i, e,, in all the 
world — not one recognises the existence of this most wonderful 
personage which the world ever had in it? 

Why is our reason patient, under the outrageous violence 
of being required to believe that he who was the pattern of all 
virtue, packed up his own flesh and bowels for immortality, 
while he left the mould in which he was cast, the lap in which 
he lay, the arms which had embraced him, for worm's meat ? 

Why is it, that in exact proportion as the various denomina- 
tions of Christians, have seceded further and further from the 
catholic church, you find them paying less and less respect to 
the Virgin Mary ? Not half so much in the church of England 
as in the church of Rome ; nor half so much among any other 
denomination of Christians as in the church of England ; and, 
among the unitarians, none at all. 

Why is it, that among all the boasted treatises on the evi- 
dences of Christianity, not one has ever attempted to prove the 
existence of the mother of Christ ? and 

Why is it, that in proportion as the attempt is made to give 
an historical basis to Christianity — all reference to his mother 
IS so carefully avoided ? 

Are not these questions which a man should ask : and on 



132 THE devil's FULPIT. 

which he should insist on being saiisfied, as he would wish to 
be faithful in the exercise of the faculty of his reason, by which 
alone he is superior to a brute ? 

And does it become a man to be going to church and chapel 
week after week, and year after year, to come away no wiser 
than he went, listening for ever to eternal repetitions of sounds 
without sense, and words without meaning. 

If learning be better than ignorance, and wisdom better than 
folly, in your apprehension, remember all ye have ever heard 
tjisewhere, in comparison with what now ye shall hear; and do 
yourselves the justice to reject the evil and to choose the good. 

The church of England celebrates two great festivals annual- 
ly to the honor of the Virgin Mary: the one on the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, called the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin ; and 
the other on the 25th of March, called the Annunciation of the 
blessed Virgin Mary, or Lady-day. 

The church of Rome, being four times more religious than 
the church of England, celebrates eight annual feasis, and as 
many preparatory fasts, the day before, to make ready for the 
feasts, to the honor of this divine lady. These are respective- 
ly:- 

Her Purification, February 2. 

Her Annunciation, March 25. 

Her Visitation, July 2. 

Her Desponsation, January 23. 

Her Commemoration, July id. 

Her Nativity, September 8. 

Her Conception, December 8. 

Her Assumption, August 15. 

Why are these particular festivals kept on these particular 
days ? 

Of the Virgin Mary, it is first to be observed, that that epithet 
added to her name, bears no such sense in its primitive appli- 
cations as modern parlance attaches to it. 

For though she is repeatedly called a virgin, she is never 
called a maid. The term virgin being applicable to any virtu- 
ous person, either married or single, and either male or female, 



THE devil's pulpit. 133 

except where she says herself—^' Behold the hand-maid of the 
Lord;" and that God ** had regarded the low estate of his 
hand-maiden." 
The celebrated 7th chapter of Isaiah, verse 14, rendered in 

the SeptUagint of ihe Vatican, IJ« rj irapdevos sv yaarpi y^Tjiperai Kai 
TE^erai viop, Kai KaXeaeis ovofxa avry KfJi[jiav8ri\, and in OUr English, 

"Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and thou shalt 
call his name Immanuel," when made to bear the preposterous 
sense which the privileged deceivers of the people put upon it, 
is only one among ten thousand instances of the egregious ig- 
norance or wicked fraud, of which, if they dared stand in con- 
troversy before us, they would stand convicled: the word which 
should signify a virgin in their sense of it, not being nnVyn, which 
is the word here used, but n'^^n::. 

But the word blessed j added to the name of virgin, itself 
interprets that word, and excludes the notion of barrenness, 
which the word virgin alone, in the sense which it bears in the 
translation, but not in the original, might seem to carry. And 
this, the more especially, as the blessedness predicated of this 
virgin, is the peculiar blessedness of fruitful ness and ahuri' 
dance : and signifies the overflowing, or that quantity over and 
above an exactly full measure, the full measure filled up and 
pressed down, and running over, or the handful thrown into the 
bargain, over and above what was exactly purchased, which is 
called the blessing. As Elizabeth, when full of the Holy Ghost, 
explaineth its sense in these words: *' Blessed art thou among 
women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" — that is, not the 
son or daughter, but most literally the fruit — that is, apples, 
fears, plums, but more especially all sorts of corn and wheat, 
for the abundanceof which, bestowed on man by this particular 
virgin, all generations shall call her the blessed, or fruitful 
virgin. 

As her husband Joseph, who had nothing to do with the pro- 
duction of the fruits of harvest, or of the harvest month, was 
yet appointed to preside over that month, and was rather a 
husbandman, than a husband, as he is expressly worshipped in 
those words of the holy catholic church: ''All hail, honor of 



134 THE devil's pulpit. 

the patriarchs : steward of the holy house of God, who hast con* 
served the bread of life, and the wheat of the elect :" which, 
if it lead us not into temptation, to suspect what particular vir- 
gin it was, whose greatest festival is celebrated on the 15th of 
August, who presides over wheat and corn, and who is the par- 
ticular hand-maid of the Lord ; we have never contemplated the 
constellation Virgo — with her extended arm, in which is the 
bright star Vindemiatrix, holding in her hand an ear of corn, 
called Spica Virginis: the stars which constitute her head, 
being scarcely visible with the naked eye, the figure is chiefly 
to be made out by those stars which go to the making up of 
the hand, which gives her the distinction of being, not the foot, 
or the leg, or the head, but the hand-maid of the Lord — that is, 
the maid with the hand. 

But why was her name Mary ? It is precisely the same as 
the name Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and literally 
signifies Myerh, of the sea, or lady or mistress of the sea. It 
is precisely the same as Smyrna, the name of the sixth of the 
seven churches which are in Asia, addressed by Christ in the 
Revelation, and which I have demonstrated to be none other 
than the seven golden candlesticks—that is, the seven constel- 
lations, the Ram, the Bull, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the* 
Virgin, and the Balance, respectively, of March, April, May, 
June, July, August, and September, in the midst of which, the 
Sun walketh in his annual course through the summer months 
or reign of the kingdom of heaven. 

It is none other than the very name of Myrrha, the mother 
of the beautiful Adonis, in the pagan mythology : as you will 
find that very name of Adonis, to this day, given by the Jews 
to their Supreme God, Yahu : and by our catholic brethren to 
their Supreme God, Jesus Christ, as in their Antiphon, for the 
18th of December. 

*' O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, come and re- 
deem us with a stretched'out arm.^^ The story of Myrrha, in 
the 10th book of Ovid, introducing the character of the old 
woman, Anna, the prophetess of Luke's gospel, the mother of 
the virgin of .he catholic, the nurse of the virgin of the pagan 



THE devil's pulpit. 335 

mythology, aiding and abetting the allegorical incest by which 
the virgin of the Zodiac is alternately represented as the 
daughter, the wife, and the mother of the sun. 

On all which natural analogies, so clear, so beautiful, so in- 
structive in their physical and philosophical interpretation, the 
clergy, whose great aim in all ages, but never so much as at 
the present day, has been to keep mankind in ignorance, have 
founded their monstrous mysteries of a conception by the Holy 
Ghost, a birth by the Virgin Mary — a Theotokos, a Deipara, a 
mother of God, a wife of her own father, a daughter of her 
own husband, a sister of her son, and mother of her brother. 
And all those other hideous spurcities which serve to show to 
what a depth of degradation the human intellect may be re- 
duced, when once 'tis left to no more learning than the priests 
will provide for it. 

The word Mary is, as every one knows, the same as the Latin 
word Mare, the sea ; and in its plural form Maria, pronounced 
Maria, signifies the seas, as the adjective Marina, of or pertain- 
ing to the sea, read without the letter n, afrer the ancient man- 
ner of writing, is the same word, and was, from the days of an 
infinitely remote antiquity, one of the names of the goddess 
Venus. The Marine Venus, as she was called by the Romans ; 
the Venus Anaduomene of the Greeks — that is, Venus rising 
out of the sea — that is, precisely the character of Miriam, the 
sister of Moses and Aaron, at the moment of their leading up 
the children of Israel out of the Red sea, when she sang that 
beautiful allegorical song, upon the moment of her foot standing 
on the horizon, or shore of the mighty deep. 

^^ Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; 
the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.^^ At that 
moment, when Spica Virginis is at the horizon, the star Pollux 
is at the Meridian, and Sagittarius, the horse and his rider, who 
is 'the Pharaoh of the Old Testament, and the Saul of the New, 
directly pursuing Miriam and her company, is at the bottom 
of the sea. And this victory of the Lord over Pharaoh, is ex- 
pressly declared to have been achieved with a stretched-out 
arm. And look ye here, sirs ; by heaven, if here is not the 



136 THE devil's pulpit. 

stretched'out army the peculiar characteristic of the virgin of 
the Zodiac, the hand-maid of the Lord ! 

This Venus Anaduomene, or Marine Venus, was the subject 
of the finest picture of all antiquity. It was painted by Apelles 
from the person of his favorite mistress, Campaspe, who had 
been given him by Alexander the Great. It came afterward in- 
to the possession of the Roman emperor Augustus, who had it 
placed in the temple, which he built to the honor of his pred- 
ecessor, Julius. 

From this famous picture, or from records of it, it is admitted, 
that Raphael, Corregio, and Titian, even down to our own Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, formed their great works, which have never 
yet been missing from the altars of our catholic cathedrals. 

And thus the face of the harlot Campaspe, has supplied the 
features of the Virgin Mary. The name Mary signifying mis- 
tress of the sea, so distinctly characterizing the marine Venus, 
is further identified by the vulgar versions of it into Polly and 
Poll, which are common epithets of the sea ; the Greek word 
Pollux, for many, referring to the many waves of the sea ; ad- 
dressed by our English poet — 

"Hail, thou inexhaustible source of wonder and contemplation! 
Hail, thou multitudious ocean. ^^ 

And in the first Iliad of Homer, we have that noble epithet 

for the sea, -o\vp\oic-f3oLo daXaacrrig, 

" Br/ 6'aK£(x)v irapa 9ivay TToXvipXaia/Soio QaXaacrrjS,'^ 

That DO such a person as the goddess Venus, or the goddess 
Ceres, the goddess of Corn and Harvest, ever really existed, is 
admitted by every one : and the pretence of their existence is 
accounted for in a moment, by that natural tendency of the 
mind to allegorize and personify all its abstract ideas. As to 
this day, we personify death, and speak of the cold hand of 
death, the jaws of death, the king of terrors — everybody, but a 
fool or an idiot, knowing that, for all such expressions as these, 
no real substantial person or personage, was ever meant by 
death. 

So, after the whole world's observance, from the days of an 



I 



THE devil's pulpit. 137 

infinitely remote antiquity, that their corn was ripe for the 
sickle at the time when the sun was observed to be in that part 
of the heavens which is marked by a group of stars, that make 
something like the shape of a young woman, with a spike of 
corn in one hand, and holding out the other, which has the 
beautiful star, Vindemiatrix in it, over another group which 
they called the Scales: the Tsabaists, as they are called, or 
worshippers of the hosts of Heaven, as naturally as 'tis natural 
to man to possess an imagination, fell into all the imaginations, 
and adopted all the personifications of that group of stars, 
which, upon the principle of faith —you know faith that 
removes mountains — became the basis of an evangelical 
history. 

What was only imagined, was believed to have happened; 
and the mistake, however gross, was such a pleasing delusion, 
that the fools didn't wish to be set right, but looked on any one 
as the devil, or the devil's chaplain, who would have awakened 
them from their drunken dream of faith, and put them to the 
trouble of being rational. 

The most extravagant adorations, and the most absurd and 
self-contradiciory fictions, were consecrated to the honor of this 
** wonder in Heaven — a woman." And the brute people, who 
never thought of asking their priests what they meant, nor 
would have endured the true and rational explication of their 
mysteries, were perfectly satisfied, that what was predicated of 
the Virgin of the Zodiac, had had a real occurrence upon earth ; 
and as for its infinite absurdity, and utter impossibility to have 
happened, the convenient adage, ^''Nothing is impossible to 
God,'" settled the matter at once. 

So, no part of religion is more rational than that in which 
this wonderful woman of the Zodiac is to this day worshipped 
throughout Christendom, under the denomination of the Virgin 
Mary ; and that, in words of which the astronomical sense is 
actually avowed and acknowledged. 

The most beautiful hymn of the Roman catholic service, ac 
tually bears the title of Ave Maria Stella— hail, Mary star— 
and proceeds : — 



138 THE DEYIL S PULPIT. 

" Bright mother of our Maker, hail. 
Thou virgin ever best ; 
The ocean's star by which we sail, 
And gain the port of rest.*' 

As we have to the same virgin, those words addressed, which, 
if ever there were a people on earth who worshipped the stars, 
are none other than precisely such words as those star-wor- 
shippers would address to this particular group of stars : — 

" Hail, flourishing virgin, chastity's renown, 
Queen of clemency, whom stars do crown. 
Hail, city of refuge, 
King David's tower, 
Fenced with bulwarks, 
And armor's power ; 
In thy conception, charity did flame ! 
The fierce dragon's pride 
Was brought to shame. 
Judith, invincible 
Woman of arms : 
Fair Abisaig, virgin, 
That true David warms." 

Who, then, is that heavenly maid, that hand-maid of the 
Lord, that Judith so remarkable for her arms, that warms the 
true David ; hut that constellation of Virgo, that city of refuge, 
as the ultimate end for which the whole year exists, and which 
the sun enters in the warm month of August, so expressly and 
literally defined in the New Testament, as " a virgin in the sixth 
month," when " he crowneth the year with his goodness. And 
the valleys also stand so thick with corn, that they do laugh 
and sing." 

Hence, this virgin of the Zodiac, without any contradiction, 
without any absurdity, was worshipped by the ancient Tsabaists, 
under the characteristic epithet of Virgo Paritura — that is, the 
virgin that shall bring forth ; because it is really and physi- 
cally the month of August, which brings forth the fruits of the 
earth: and for the fruitfulness of which, expectation waits 
through all the circling year. 



THE devil's pulpit. 139 

Hence, though a pure virgin — that is, most literally, a fire 
virgin — that is, a virgin whose form is made up of those bright 
fires, which stud the starry bosom of the night — she is yet the 
tender mother of all animal life, who provides the food on which 
we are to be sustained throughout the year — that "openeih her 
hand and fiUeth all things living with plenteousness.*' Thus, 
all is beautiful, all is magnificent, grand, harmonious, and in- 
telligible ; elegant as art, and convincing as science, when in- 
terpreted by the true key of astronomical allegory. 

Where stands the virgin mother, in the gospel, but near the 
cross of Christ ? 

Where stands the virgin mother in the Zodiac ? but just as 
near the cross which the sun makes over the equinoctial line, 
in September, when, after having expended his last fervors in 
ripening the corn, he passes into his church of Laodicea — that 
is, literally, the just people — that is, the group of stars which 
from the scales of justice, in which it is neither hot nor cold, 
but lukewarm : but where the solar heat every day diminish- 
ing, he begins to descend with sorrow to the grave. 

The virgin mother, is supposed grievously to deplore this 
event. Hence the pictures of the crucifixion of Christ, which 
represent the Virgin Mary, with the face of the Venus of Apel- 
les, in deep grief, standing near the foot of the cross. It never 
being to be forgotten that the New Testament most distinctly 
speaks of two crucifixions of Christ, answering to the two 
crosses which the sun makes over the equator — the one in 
spring, in which he is the crucified Lamb, and after which he 
ascends into heaven, and the other in September; after which, 
he descended into hell. As you have respectively two distinct 
pictorial representations of the crucifixion, the vernal cruci- 
fixion, entirely omitting the figure of the virgin mother, as that 
of the autumnal crucifixion, which takes place in September, 
with perfect analogy, never omits to represent the virgin ol 
August, as standing near the cross of September. 

And the plaint of the blessed virgin, as read to this day in 
the church of Rome : — 



140 THE devil's pulpit. 

" In grief the holy mother stood, 
Weeping near the holy wood," 

is but a version, and a very bad one, of the Greek idyl of Mos- 
chus, the plaint of the goddess Venus for the death of her 
Adonis : — 

" Alas, alas ! Adonis, the beautiful Adonis, is dead ; 
Alas, alas ! Cytherea, thy beautiful Adonis is dead." 

Thamuzand Adonis are one and the self-same Diety — Adonis 
being none other than the sun in Thamuz, whence our common 
name of Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Christ — that is, 
one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; the Hebrew name for 
the month of June being Thomas ; and Thomas, which is also 
called Didymus, signifying a twin. 

The annual wound, and being yearly wounded^ puts the 
astronomical sense beyond all approach of doubt. The sun, 
under his name Adonis, literally composed of the three words — 
AD, the lord ; ox, the being; and is, the fire, is allegorically 
wounded, killed, or put out, by the ascendency of the great 
bear, boar, or pig, which is lord of the ascendant during the 
winter months. So Adonis, in the pagan allegory, is believed 
to be killed by the tusks of a wild boar ; and Jesus, in the 
Christian allegory, discovers a particular spite against pigs, and 
is represented to have received five wounds, analogous to the 
five winter months, October, November, December, January, 
and February, during which he is below the line of the Equator. 

And hence, the savages, whom we call the peculiar people 
of God, who have always been worshippers of Adonis, and who, 
to this day, use the word Adonai as synonymous with Yahou, 
which we absurdly pronounce Jehovah, have always been dis- 
tinguished for their aversion to pork. And the 80th Psalm to 
David, that is, to the true David, the sun, beautifully describes 
the ravages of winter, under this very figure, calling on the sun 
to turn and bring back again the comforts of that better weather^ 
which we all at this time, so long to see. 

*'The wild boar out of the woods doth root it up, and the 
wild beasts of the field devour it." 

" Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand : and upon 



THE DEVIL "S PULPIT. 141 

the son of man, whom thou mad est so strong for thine own 
self:" that is to say, ** Turn thee again, Lord God of hosts, 
show the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole." 

We shall get the better of these coughs and colds when the 
fine weather comes, but not till then,*when we shall be able to 
say, ** Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious sum- 
mer, by this son of 7ork." 

That the Virgin Mary, the Grecian Venus, and the Egyptian 
Isis, are each of them the same as the Virgin of the Zodiac, is 
a truth borne out, not by one or two, but by a thousand analogies. 

Paris, the capital of France, still retains its Greek name 
TLapa icis — that is, under the protection of Isis, as its great 
cathedral, bears the name of Notre Dame — that is, our lady — 
that is, the common name of Isis, Ceres, Venus, and the Virgin. 
But that by this Notre Dame, our lady, was meant none other 
than the lady of the Zodiac, is certified by the architecture of 
the building itself, which represents the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac, six and six perpendicularly on the sides of the great 
northren entrance, with the place that should be occupied by 
the virgin, supplied instead with a figure of the architect of 
the edifice, and the virgin, to whose honor it is dedicated, 
taken out of her place in the succession of the signs, and set 
over the centre of the door as the goddess of the temple, with 
the child Jesus in her arms, and having under her feet a serpent 
tv/isted round a tree, which is the exact relation of the virgin 
of the Zodiac. 

Before the invention of letters, the hieroglyphical monogram 
of the Virgin of the Zodiac was, what to this day it continues, 
three straight strokes, with a thin running line from the middle 
of the one, to the top of the other, and a tail, or downward 
stroke, passing below the others, which has since become the 
shape of the letters M and Y, the natural abbreviation of the 
name Mary. 

But not alone the character and the symbols of the Virgin of 
the Zodiac, were from remotest ages the very same as those of 
the virgin mother of Christ ; but the name both of Christ and 
pf Jesus, was given to the child which the Virgin of the Zodiac 



142 THE devil's pulpit. 

was represented as carrying her in arrns, and which, in the in- 
scription to her honor in the temple of Isis, she was represented 
as herself declaring to be none other than the sun. I am all 

THAT IS, THAT WAS, AND THAT SHALL BE : AJNT) THE FRUIT WHICH 
I BROUGHT FORTH IS THE SUN. 

The Arabian astronomer Alboazar, or Abulmaz-ar, has the 
curious passage, quoted by Kirker Selden and R. Bacon, and 
Dupuis (vol. iii., p. 46), putting the astronomical and infinitely 
remote antiquity of the Christian allegory, beyond question, to 
every mind capable of perceiving what evidence of antiquity, 
really is. 

"We have," says Abulmazar, *-in the first decan of the sign 
of the Virgin, following the most ancient traditions of the Per- 
sians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, Hermes, and Esculapius, 
a young woman, called in the Persic language Seclenidos de 
Darzama : in Arabic, Adrenedefa — that is to say, a chaste, pure, 
and immaculate virgin, suckling an infant, which some nations 
call Jesus, but which we, in Greek, call Christ." 

And why was this virgin mother of Christ Jesus, espoused 
to a man whose name was Joseph, but as you may see in the 
visible heavens, and as is here delineated on the globe, this 
Tirgin in the sixth month, August, is accompanied, and always 
to be seen together, rising or setting with the husbandman 
Bootes, who, with his beantiful star Arcturus and his sons, 
mentioned in the book of Job, presided over the vintage, and 
was believed to have taught mankind the cultivation of com ; 
and who is so honored and so worshipped to this day, by the 
church of Rome, in her collect: "We beseech thee, Lord, 
that we may be assisted by the merits of the spouse of thy most 
holy mother, that what of ourselves we can not obtain, may be 
given us by his intercession, who liveth and reigneth with God 
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost." 

The name Bethlehem, in which the virgin resided, literally 
signifying the house of corn, and the name Joseph, as literally 
signifying increase or abundance ; and it is the business of the 
husoandman to store up and take care of this increase and 
abundance, as it is in the month of August that the earth brinors 



THE devil's pulpit. 143 

forth her increase, and God, even our God, doth give us his 
hlessing. 

And why, has the church fixed the great festival of the as- 
sumption of the blessed Virgin Mary, on the 15th of August, 
and that of her nativity on the 8th of September, as you will 
see in your almanacs, even of the present year ? 

The assumption of the Virgin Mary, is fixed on the 15th of 
August, because at that time the sun is so entirely in the con- 
stellation of the virgin, that the stars of which it is composed 
are rendered invisible in the bright eflfulgence of his rays ; and 
th'e Christian church has the words : ** This day the Virgin 
Mary, is taken up into the heavenly chamber, in which the King 
of kings, sits in his starry seat." As the pagan church, from 
an infinite antiquity, fixed this very day, as that of the assump- 
tion of ihe goddess Astrea — that is, the starry goddess, which 
IS but another name of the same personification. But, about 
three weeks afterward, the sun having passed on, in his appa- 
rent annual course, toward the scales of September, the stars 
which compose the virgin, seem to emerge out of his rays, and 
begin again to be visible to the naked eye. 

For that reason, and for none other, the church has fixed the 
festival of the nativity of the virgin on the 8th of September. 

And she was espoused to the man Joseph, because the con- 
stellation Bootes, always rises and sets with her, and so was 
imagined to have the charge of bringing her up. With her he 
comes up into the Open'r}^ the hill-country, the upper or visible 
hemisphere ; and with her, he goes down into Egypt — that is, 
he sinks below the horizon in the west. The great star in the 
virgin, appearing on the eastern edge of the horizon, at the 
moment of midnight, between the 24th and 25th of December, 
when the sun gains his first degree of ascension, was said to 
preside over his nativity, and gave occasion to the fable of 
Christ — i. e. the Sun being born of a pure Virgin. 

The fable of the birth, being once adopted, the natural analo- 
gies of human life, supplied the date of other festivals in honor 
of this celestial lady, as that of Lady-day, the 25th of March, 
precisely nine months before the 25ih of December. 



144 THE devil's pulpit. 

While her own allegorical language supplies all the fillings- 
up, of the ingenious fiction, the pure virgin, without any con- 
tradiction or absurdity, is lite rally purified in the fire of hell, 
when she is in her " low estate,^' in February ; but, in the sixth 
month, she thanks the sun for having regarded the low estate, 
(hat she, this matd with the handy had been in, when he has put 
down the mighty — z. e. the stars of the opposite constellation, 
from their seat, and exalted or brought to the zenith, those that 
had been of low degree. He fills the hungry with good things, 
as the Lion of July, called by Samson, the eater, and herself 
in the sixth month, are the fruitful and abundant months ; while 
the rich, the opposite signs of January and February, are sent 
empty away, with nothing to live on, bui fish ; so ihat with 
them, till the mutton of March ; and the beef of April come in, 
it must necessarily be. Lent. 

And all this to- do is expressly declared to be in fulfilment 
of the covenant — ihat is, most literally, making up of the as- 
tronomical allegory to Abraham — that is, the planet Saturn and 
his seed — that is, the stars of heaven for ever. 

Thus, sirs, have I brought before you, in this lecture, a few, 
m my other lectures, very many, of the principles of that occult 
astronomical science which lies hid under the riddle of evangel- 
ical fiction, with a force of demonstration which prejudice, 
hypocrisy, or madness, may oppose, but reason can not. 

For, sirs, if reason, if truth, and the right of the cause, were 
with those whom I oppose ; or, if they themselves but felt an 
honorable conviction that they were right, why should they 
have recourse to the dark and slanderous arts of defamation and 
scandal, and the wicked persecuting tricks, which a good cause 
never needed, and good men never used. 

Why should they brand me with opprobrious epithets, to 
terrify men's minds from the pursuit of knowledge ? Why is it 
that they dare not trust their hearers, nay, nor themselves, so 
much as to hear me, or even to know what the nature of the 
arguments, I adduce is ? But that, like conscious bankrupts, 
they dare not look at the bill which an honest man would bring 
against them. 

, Why do they decline the challenge which I have given, and 
shall never cease to give, to the best and ablest of them, under 
any arrangements, even of their own, so they will not kill me, 
to show, by fair com.parison, whether it be we, or they, who aare 
deceivers of the people ? ^ 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON VIRGO PARITURA. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— JLZZan Cunningham. 

SAINT PETER: 

A SERMON, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, FEBRUARY 20, 1831. 



^* And when Jesus was come into Peter*s house, he saw his wife^s 
mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he to^iched her hand, and 
the fever left her; and she arose, and ministered unto them" — 
Matthew viii. 14. 



Here is a personage introduced to us, of whom we ought, 
upon all principles of rational criticism, to be supposed never to 
have heard before. For this is the first passage in any part of 
God's most holy word (that is, in either New Testament or 
Old), in which the name of Peter occurs : yet here his name 
occurs, and his character is introduced with a familiarity as 
gross, as if the writer of this gospel had taken it for granted 
that everybody must know who Peter was — that his name and 
character, and everything that was to be understood with respect 
to him, would present itself to the mind as immediately as the 
name of any one of the days of the week or months of the year. 
As you might say, Sunday, February 20 ; everybody knowing, 
as well as yourself, what Sunday, February 20, means. 

A proof, this, among ten thousand others, that these gospels 

1.0 



]46 THE devil's pcjlpit. 

are not original writings, and were not, and could not have been, 
written, till any length of time you please, after all the subject- 
matter whicJi they contain was as familiar to the general no- 
tions, and ordinary associations of idea, among the persons for 
whose convenience they were written, as the names of the days 
of the week are with ourselves. 

Here is an ambiguity in the text itself, which could only have 
been set right, or at least settled, by those who had other and 
better means of settling it, than any information which this 
gospel contains. For, as far as the text goes — '* When Jesus 
was come into Peters house, he saw his wife''s mother laid, and 
sick of a fever"" — there's no knowing whether it was Peter's 
wife's mother, or Jesus's wife's mother, that was laid, and sick 
of a fever. 

And if anything like historical and probable fact were intend- 
ed in the matter, nothing hinders but that Jesus might have been 
a married man, as well as Peler. And there might have been 
a Mistress Jesus Christ, as well as a Mistress Peter ; and that^ 
too, with very great relief to the moral character of this great 
pattern of holiness, from certain suspicions which would natural- 
ly attach to a person who was so familiar as he was, with other 
men's wives: as we expressly read, that he was followed by 
certain women which had evil spirits ; which evil spirits, I hope 
I may, without impiety, suppose to be none of the best spirits. 
** Mary Magdalen, out of whom went seven devils ; and Joanna, 
the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward ; and Susanna, and many 
others which ministered to him of their substance." 

Like the great Mogul, this great pattern of purity and holiness 
— his purity and holiness, notwithstanding, kept a seraglio — 
which accounts for the singular fact, that of all the ten com- 
mandments, the one which our blessed Savior held to be of least 
consequence, was that which comes between " thou shalt do no 
murder,'''' and " thou shalt not sieaL'^'' As we find him disposed to 
hush up a matter of that sort, with a good-natured — Ut, tut !say 
no more about it — say no more about it. Hath no man condemii- 
ed thee, woman ? neither do I condemn thee. We are six of one 
and half-a-dozen of the other. Go, go ! and be more prudent 



THE devil's ptjlpit. 147 

for the future . It is not for us to fling stones at you. The gos- 
pel, you see, both in example and precept, presents us with the 
purest system of morals that was ever propounded to man. 

But our business now is with the chief of the apostles, that 
great paragon of moral perfection. Saint Peter, who denied his 
master, and who curst and swore till the very cock upon his 
roost crowed, Shame on you, Peter ; but, by the wink of an eye, 
turned into *' Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, 
the first saint of the calendar, the porter of heaven's gate, and 
the rock and foundation of the whole Christian church." 

INow, as we can never go to heaven when we die, unless 
Peter, to whom Christ has committed the keys, shall be pleased 
to open the gate to us, is it not worth our while to scrape all the 
acquaintance we can with such an important personage, and not 
to expose our souls to the dreadful venture of having to knock, 
and cry, Lord, Lord, open to us, to receive no better answer, 

perhaps, than a go and he • , ye fools, I know ye not ; and 

why should I, when you never thought it worth your while to 
know me. 

So, then, if ye have a mmd, I will introduce ye to Saint Peter, 
and will tell you more about him, and of him, than any of 
your clergy, either catholic or protestant, have ever known 
themselves, or if they have known, than they have ever had the 
honesty to lell you. Their object being that of the cherubim, 
with the flaming sword, which turned every way to keep you 
from the tree of knowledge — my object being, that which suita- 
bly comports with the title they have given me, of the deviVs 
chaplain, to tempt you, by all arguments I can, to eat of that 
forbidden fruit ; for God doth know, that in the day that ye eat 
thereof, then shall your eyes be open ; ye shall see, through the 
vile and wicked imposture that has been practised on you, and 
the power of priests shalt exist no longer. 

The gospel of Luke, chap, iv., settles the ambiguity of the text 
of Matthew, by determining for us, what otherwise we should 
have no right to determine, that it was Simon's wife's mother, 
and not Jesus's wife's mother, that had the fever — Simon and 
Peter, or Simon Peter, being assumed to be synonymous, or a 



148 THE devil's pulpit. 

double name for one and the self-same personage. But the mat- 
ter is but little mended, in this account, which represents the 
fever, which had seized the old woman, as being as much a real 
personage, and as sensible a personage, as the old woman herself. 

St. Luke, who we are told, was a physician, and therefore 
ought to be called Doctor St. Luke (and we have at this day a 
Doctor St. John), tells us that this fever took the woman, not 
that the woman had taken the fever; and not that the fever 
was a very bad fever, or a yellow fever, or a scarlet fever, but 
that it was a great fever — that is, I suppose, a fever six feet 
high, at least : a personal fever, a rational and intelligent fever, 
that would yield to the power of Jesus's argument, but would 
never have given way to James's powder. So we are expressly 
told, that Jesus rebuked the fever — that is, he gave it a good 
scolding : asked it, I dare say, how it could be so unreasonable 
as to plague the poor old woman so cruelly, and whether it 
wasn't ashamed of itself ; and said, perhaps, Get out, you naughty 
wicked fever you: go to hell with you ; and such like objurgatory 
language, which, the fever, not being used to be rebuked in such 
a manner, and being a very sensible sort of a fever, would not 
stand, but immediately left the old woman in high dudgeon, 
and swore he'd never come into that house again. 

The next important discovery is, that Peter, or Simon Peter 
was at any rate worth a house : which shows us, at least, that 
the man was by so much richer than the master, who declares 
that he had not where to lay his head. The apostle, you see 
had a fixed and permanent place of residence, while his master 
had not. It is hard to reconcile this admission of Peter's being 
a housekeeper, and able, not only to keep a wife, and very likely 
a large family of his own, but to keep his wife's mother as well ; 
with the general understanding, that he was exceedingly poor, 
and nothing more than a poor fisherman of the Galilean lake, 
except we suppose that his wife took in washing, which may 
account for her husband being a water-bearer.* 

But then again we have the fresh difficulty opened upon us, 
in the acts of the apostles, which implies, that he was not a 
* Peter is unquestionably the Aquarius of the Zodiac. 



THE devil's pulpit. 149 

fisherman, but a tanner, whose house was by the seaside, with 
this most curious source of ambiguity, which none of your 
clergy can give a reason for ; and you shall soon see that I can : 
that Simon Peter, who, in the gospel, is but one person, in the 
Acts of the apostles, splits into the two, Simon, and Peter : and 
then, Peter is no longer a housekeeper, but a lodger, Peter, 
lodging in the house of Simon. The house of the tanner being 
by the seaside (which was certainly not the best situation for 
a tanyard], may account for the mistake of the tanner being 
taken for a fisherman. Though the most conclusive reason for 
settling the question, that this first of the apostles was a tanner, 
and not a fisherman, is, that though he might catch a sole or a 
flat-fish now and then, yet we may be very well assured, that 
there is nothing like leather. ** And it came to pass," says our 
holy record, *'that Peter tarried many days in Joppa, with one 
Simon a tanner." But the most curious fact is, that God Al- 
mighty, who knows nothing about 17, Carey street, Lincoln's 
Inn, should discover such a very particular acquaintance with 
the house of Simon the tanner, as in two or three particular 
revelations from Heaven, repeatedly to describe it, as if to pre- 
vent all possibility of mistake ; " And now send men to Joppa, 
and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter ; he lodgeth 
with one Simon a tanner, whose house is hy the seaside.^^ This 
is most condescending particularity indeed. Now it is held to 
be a wonderful conformation to the evidences of Christianity, to 
know that there actually is a town of the name of Joppa, situate 
in the Levant, on the coast of the Mediterranean sea : and our 
Christian travellers, who always see what they go to see, by 
the help of this divine directory, will find you out the very tan- 
yard of Simon, and come back in new shoes, made of the leather 
ihat Simon tanned. 

While the scripture mentions no other place of permanent 
esidence for St. Peter, none that could at any time be called 
ais home, but Joppa — God himself instructing us that if we want 
to find Peter, we must send io Joppa, And if we really want to 
know who a man is, there's nothing like setting ourselves to 
find out who he is when he is at home. Now, as Peter was a 



150 THE devil's pulpit. 

sort of personage who found it convenient to have more names 
than one, and could only be identified by ringing the changes 
through a great many aliases, as alias Simon, alias Peter, alias 
Simon Peter, alias Peter Simon, alias Cephas, alias a stone, 
alias a rock, alias Salan, alias the devil ; — 

We have one of these aliases immediately conferred on him 
by Christ himself, which puts into our hands a clue to further 
unravelments, " Blessed art thou Simon, Bar-Jonah,^^ Matt. xvi. 

But this *' Bar- Jonah," ought to be no bar to our perception, 
that Simon and Jonah are one and the same personage — ** Bar- 
Jonah," signifying the son of Jonah, and son and father common- 
ly bearing the same name: and Jonah, who navigated in the 
fish's belly, when he fled from the presence of the Lord, went 
down to Joppa, and there he found a ship going to Tarshish; 
so that Simon Bar-Jonah — that is, Simon, the son of Jonah, 
identifies the Peter of the New Testament, as a second edition 
of the Jonah of the Old, according to the analogy which, in so 
many instances, I have demonstrated as obtaining, between the 
old and new covenant : with only this curious transposition, 
that in the new covenant, it is the man that catches the fish : 
whereas, in the old covenant, it is the fish that catches the man. 

Now the name Jonas, which, in the showing of Christ him- 
self, constituted so essential a part of the style of Simon Peter . 
Simon Bar-Jonah is a direct anagram, and absolutely the same 
name as that of Janus, who, in the pagan mythology, bears the 
same character, and fills the same functions, as the Simon Bar- 
Jonah, or Peter of the gospel ; with this most curious, most 
startling coincidence of fact — that while no single line of his- 
torical record, of any character whatever, was ever yet to be 
adduced to prove that any such person as Simon Peter or Simon 
Bar- Jonah ever existed, or was ever in Rome — Rome, through all 
periods of its pagan history, was famous for its temple of Janus. 
Janus was not a Greek, but peculiarly and exclusively a Roman 
deity ; and Rome, to this day, retains the self-same Janus, under 
his name Peter, as her patron saint ; and her temple of Janus, on 
the self-same spot ofground, under her name of >S^Peier'5cAwrcA. 

The figure of the God, Janus (lawo^) was represented with a 



THE devil's pulpit. 151 

Staff in one hand, with which he pointed to a rock, whence 
issued a profusion of water ; while in the other he held a key, 
and had generally near him some resemblance of a ship. 
He was addressed : — 

" Jane bifrons, anni tacite labentis origo.'^ 

Two-faced Janus , the origin of the silently- flowing year. He 
was believed to preside over the new year : his two faces 
(sometimes one old, and the other young) was emblematical of 
his looking both on the old and the new year, as the name of the 
month January, is derived from that of Janus. And his fingers 
were so disposed as to represent the number 365, the number 
of the days of the year. Sometimes the two faces, the old and 
young, were represented as the one looking upward, to the com- 
ing year, the other downward, on the year gone by, and were 
set on two distinct persons ; and in this form you may see him 
to this day, on the western front of our own St. Paul's cathedral, 
where he has got the character of the evangelist, St. Marh 
And the church has invented the silly lie that St. Mark wrote 
his gospel, under the immediate dictation of St, Peter ; as there 
you will observe the old boy, with his pen in his hand, ready to 
scribble away ; while the young one (a little Cupid, with wings, 
the very form of the Aquarius, or Water-bearer of the Zodiac) 
is looking him up in the face, and telling him what to write. 
While we have still preserved the very words of the pagan 
prayer-book, which identify him with the Peter of the gospel. 

" Jane Pater, Jane tuens, Dive biceps biformis. 
O Gate rerum Sator, O Principium Deorum.'^ 

O father Janus, O regarding Janus, two-headed, two-hodied 
saint ; O wise sower of things, O chief of all the gods. 

The word Pater, now generally taken for the Greek or Latin 
for FATHER, is but a corruption of the word Peter. The word 
Pater or Petor, whence the name of the apostle Peter was, as 
the learned Bryant has shown, an Egyptian word, the true name 
of the Ammonian priests, or priests of Jupiter Ammon, being 
Peter or Paior: and it is found in combination, to this day, in 
the name of the supreme pagan deity, Jupiter, which, withou* 



152 

any pun or levity, and in brave defiance of any approach of 
ridicule or sarcasm, stands, the incontrovertible basis and origin 
of the Jew^ Peter — Jew was the name of God, which the soft and 
elegant utterance of the Greek nations, pronounced with a sigma 
or Zeta, as Z^u?, or "Lev, and Pater, or Peter, signifying not his 
paternal character, but his wisdom, in foretelling things to 
come, " or bringing to light," the proper attribute of time. As 
the priests of Apollo were called Pateres, ox Peters, m significa- 
tion of their being interpreters of the oracles of Apollo, as our 
priests, are to this day. 

All the names of relationship among us, as father, mother, 
brother, sister, uncle, nephew, niece, being, in the opinion of the 
learned Bryant, originally the names of different orders of priests 
or priestesses of the gods and goddesses. 

The name of Peter, the highest, first, and chief of the priestly 
hierarchy, and a part of the name of the supreme deity Jew* 
Peter, was, by an obvious metaphor, passed over to the father 
of the household, and he was called Pater, as bearing the same 
analogy to the family as Janus to the gods, as January to the 
year, as Aquarius to the Zodiac, as Reuben to the patriarchate, 
as Jonah to the prophets, as Peter to the apostleship, and as 
John the Baptist to the messiahship. 

At Rome, the pagan origin of the name and character of 
Janus is overlooked or forgotten in the word St, Peter ; but at 
Naples, professing the same Christian religion as Rome, and 
under the same patron saint, it comes bolt upon us in the un- 
covered, and undisguised name of Saint January, bishop of 
Benevenlo, who was believed to have been beheaded in the 
persecution of Diocletian, and who was much such another 
saint, as Saint Monday, and whose blood is annually liquefied, 
when toward the latter end of January, the sun turning and 
looking with a warmer ray upon the month, that had denied 
being under his influence, his icy heart is thawed, his frosts un- 
bound, and January, that came in so cold and ruthless, and 
blustered like St. Peter in the gospel, " went out and wept 
bitterly :" and here you see niore than enough of the marks of 
his dirty tears staining the walls of our Rotunda. 



THE Devil's pulpit. 153 

One of the most striking epithets of the god Janus was 
Matutinus — that is, of or pertaining to the morning, as he was 
believed to preside over all beginnings, entrances, gates, and 
commencements ; not merely over the beginning of the year, 
but over the beginning or dawn of every day : and hence, the 
cock, whose crowing announces the first appearance of the day, 
was the peculiarly accompanying emblem of the god Janus ; 
and bears precisely the same part in the gospel allegory, in 
crowing Peter into repentance, as he bears in the analogy of 
nature, when his shrill voice proclaims the breaking-in of 
evangelical light upon the dark conscience of the sun-abjuring 
apostle ; and the evidence of his repentance descends upon the 
world, in the dewy tears of the morning. 

Hence, 'tis the allegorical language of the sun, addressed to 
the god of morning, most beautiful in poetry, most accurate in 
nature, in the 130th Psalm : ^^ My soul waiteth for thee, before 
the morning watch, I say before the morning loatch.''^ Nor less 
allegorical, nor less beautiful, is that extension of the metaphor, 
in the language of Christ, to the Janus of the gospel. 

" Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice" — that is, 
extendedly, ** Through the three watches of thy state of dqrk- 
ness, thou shalt forswear thy Lord ; but the early bird shall 
awaken thee, and at his crowing thou shalt perceive my glance 
upon thee, and acknowledge its influence, in dewy sorrows.^^ 

The Greeks, who never adopted the Janus of the Romans, 
had a Janus of their own — i. e., the same allegorical personage, 
under the name of JEsculapius, who, like the Janus of the Ro- 
mans, the Jonas of the Old Testament, and the Simon Bar- Jonah, 
or Simon Peter of the gospel, was none other than one of the 
ten thousand personifications of the sun: as is discovered to us 
in the etymology of the name JEsculapius, which is compounded 
of the three Ammonian radicals: ask— fire — kul — all: ab — 
father, with the mere grammatical termination, making Ash — 
kul — ab — ius — that is — ^sculapius, the fire, the universal 
father — that is, the sun. 

Of the Greek Janus, then, as well as of the Roman, the cock 
was the peculiar emblem : and we have meaning, significancy, 



154 THE devil's pitlpit. 

and beauty, in those last words of the dying Socrates, admitted 
to have been one of the wisest of the human race, and a most 
strenuous maintainer of the unity and perfection of the Supreme 
Being, when, with his dying breath, he reminded his followers 
of their religious duties, saying, ** Remember we owe a cock to 
JEsculapiusy 

But the accompaniments and associations which identify the 
Saint Peter of the gospel, are more particularly ; — 

1. His primacy in the apostleship. 

2. His appointment to the care of the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven. 

3. His designation as Cephas, which is, being interpreted, a 
siune, or rock, upon which stone or rock the church of Christ 
was to be founded. 

4. His being the brother of Andrew. 

5. His being the father of Judas Iscariot ; as Judas Iscariot is 
expressly called the son of Simon. 

6. His being the peculiar comrad e of /<2me5 and John, the sons 
of Zehedee, which were partners with Simon, Luke v. 

7. His always and invariably being connected with fishing, or 
fishing-nets, or a boat or ship, or with something necessarily lead- 
ing the mind to some idea of water, of the sea, or of a sea-faring 
life. 

The ship into which Christ entered was Simon's; the house 
into which Christ entered was Simon's. And we have four 
partners in the firm, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and the 
brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee ; which name 
Zebedee, literally signifies, abundant portion, as James and 
John receive from Christ the distinguishing title of Boanerges, 
which is, the sons of thunder. Mark iii. 

1. The primacy, or first place in the apostleship, is evidently 
given to Peter, on no score of superior merit, and can be ac- 
counted for on no other principles, than the analogy of his char- 
acter, and the absolute identity of his name, as Simon Bar-Jonah, 
to the first of the signs of the Zodiac, Aquarius, the water-bear- 
er, from which the name of the month Jonuary, or January, takes 
its name, followed as you see that month is, by the sign of the 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 155 

lishes of February, which the man, pouring out his urn of wa- 
ter, seems to be pursuing : hence the allegorical character of a 
fisherman, given to the Peter of the gospel, and the belief, that 
Janus was the son of the ocean, and the invariable accompani- 
ment of a boat or ship^ in all representations of the Janus of the 
mythology. 

The water which Aquarius, or Januarius, pours out of his urn, 
is swallowed by the great southern fish, Formalhaut : hence, 
the allegorical fiction of Jonah, being swallowed by a whale, in 
the Old Testament, and the no less allegorical danger of St. 
Peter, of being drowned, in the New. 

2. The keys of the kingdom of heaven, given to Peter, in those 
words of Christ : *' I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter; and 
upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
earth, shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven" — is a sort of language 
to which any notion of literality, history, or absolute fact, can 
no more attach, than to the language of -^sop's fables. "We 
must renounce our reason altogether, and so, the greater fools 
or madmen we can make of ourselves the better, to dream of 
such a thing as a heaven with keys to it : the key of the pantry- 
door, and literal gates of hell, and a power, either given or 
possessed, by any human being, or divine being, either to bind 
or loose, according to the caprice of his arbitrary will. 

And this renunciation of men's reason it is, that has given 
grounds to the insane arrogance of the papal power, and the no 
less insane tyranny of our protestant clergy, and the infinite 
miseries, cruelties, and crimes, which religious insanity has 
entailed on the Christian world. 

But, use your reason, and how beautiful, how sublime is the 
allegory : you have the key of the kingdom of heaven, as it 
were, put into your hand, by Christ himself, in his own express 
declaration, that to preach the gospel, was 'Uo preach the ac' 
ceptahle year of the Lord"*' — that is (than which no explanation 
could be plainer) — lo preach the gospel, is to set forth the annual 



156 THE devil's pulpit. 

phaenomena of nature, under the beautiful type of an allegorical 
history : in which the sun is represented as Jesus Christ, and 
the twelve apostles, through which he sheds his bright beams 
of light upon the world, are the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 
And thus you see at once, in how beautiful, in how sublime an 
analogy, Janus or January has two faces, the one looking down- 
ward upon the old, the other upward on the new year. 

2. How Reuben, the first of the twelve patriarchs, who is the 
same Aquarius, is described in tht Pentateuch, as that *' he shall 
pour the water out of his buckets,''^ 

3. How the Son of man, who is the same Aquarius in the 
psalms, is described as " the man of his right hand, who God"^ 
— that is, the sun ^^ made so strong for his ownself^^ 

4. How the prophet Jonas, who is the same Aquarius, was 
swallowed by the whale. 

5. How, when you go into the city, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
** there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water," who 
is this same Aquarius, the Water-bearer of January. 

6. How, John the Baptist, who is this same Aquarius, comes 
baptizing with water to repentance, saying that ** they should 
believe on him who should come after him" — that is, the Sun. 

7. How, Simon Bar-Jonas, who is again this same Aquarius, 
is always connected with the idea of water and fishing, has the 
keys of the kingdom of Heaven ; as he stands as the first month 
of the year, and has the power of binding up the heavens in 
frosts : whose effect is felt throughout all nature, or loosening 
them in thaws, and deluging us with rains : of which, in like 
manner, everything on earth is loosened, and liquefied, with 
this only consolatory assurance, that **the gates of Hell shall 
never prevail against it" — that is, be the frosts or thaws, the 
bindings or loosenings of January, what they may ; the Sun has 
given such power to this first month of the year, that the gates 
of Hell — that is, the months of October, November, and De- 
cember, which the Sun passes through, in autumn and winter, 
will never be able to recover their empire ; and January, the 
rook of ages, with all his ruggedaess, or frosts or thaws ; by the 
evidence of his lengthening days, assures us^ that — 



THE devil's pulpit. 157 

♦* Though horrors round our mansion reign, 

Yet spring shall come, and nature smile again.'^ 

And hence, have we the meaning of that conundrum, that in 
the days of November and December, which are now gone by, 
we desired to see one of the days of January — that is, one of 
the days of the Son of man, and were not able. 

And we have this distinctive axiom, laid down by the speaker 
in the gospels, as a guide and clue to us in the astronomical 
interpretation, to prevent the confusion and cross-purposing, 
which would appear to arise from the Sun being spoken of as 
the sign in which the Sun is ; and the sign in which the Sun is, 
as the Sun itself. 

" The disciple is not above his lord ; it is enough for the 
disciple, that he he as his lord,^^ And hence, the equal respect 
paid in the heathen mythology to Janus, as to the supreme 
Jupiter himself: and each of the twelve great gods, when 
spoken of separately and distinctively, being each in turn spoken 
of and addressed as the one Supreme and only God. Hence, in 
the Christian mythology, the equal respect paid to the apostles, 
or to each and every of them, as to Christ himself, and, 
indeed, a great deal more — as you will find throughout Chris- 
tendom, twenty churches built to the honor of St, Peter, St. 
James, St. Andrew, and all the rest of them, except Saint Judas 
Iscariot, for one to the honor of poor Jesus. 

And hence, you see, with what an accuracy of analogy tha 
apostle has a house of his own, while the Savior has not whers 
to lay his head — the constellations retaining their fixed relative 
positions, while the Sun, in seeming to pass through them, 
wanders from house to house. 

And hence, as you find Jesus in the gospel, calling Peter a 
stone, you will find Peter in the epistle returning the compli- 
ment, and calling him a stone, and the drollest kind of a stone 
that ever was in the world, ** a living stone, unto ivhom coming,'*'* 
he says, *' as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, hut 
chozen of God, and preciousy And this^ in accomplishment 
of that most extraordinary prophecy, in the 28th of Isaiah: 
" Thus saith the Lord God, ' behold I lay in Zion for a founda- 



158 THE devil's pulpit. 



tion, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foun- 
dation ; and he that believeth shall not make haste:' " which, 
for any explication that any of my reverend brethren can give, 
and saving (most reverentially saving) the honor of the Lord 
God, who, yoii know, has a right to say what he pleases : if any 

body else had said it, I should say No ! I won't tell you 

what I should say. 

Are we then so positively commanded to worship a stone, 
and to believe in a stone ; and that, under peril of the drollest 
damnation that ever man was damned to, that if we don't be- 
lieve in the stone, we shall make haste ? 

And does it become us, then, to fling stones at the pretended 
ignorance of our heathen ancestors, and to assure ourselves that 
none other than the grossest litholatry could have been intended 
by those who addressed their devotions to the immortal statuary 
of a Phidias or Praxiteles, the Paphian Venus, or the Olympian 
Jove, all of Parian marble, and of such matchless execution, as 
if the design of them had been to present a perpetual admoni- 
tion to the world : how clever, how infinitely clever man may 
become, when he gives his mind to the arts and sciences ; and 
what a fool, religion makes of him. 0, but cry my gospel in- 
locents, the stone, spoken of in Scripture, does not mean a 
stone. No ! it does not ; and neither does the man, spoken of 
in the gospel, mean a man : and no such man as Jesus Christ, 
or such men as any one of his twelve apostles, ever existed. 
Nor has their historical existence ever been pretended, but by 
those whose object is to keep mankind in ignorance, and who 
have justly, thai wo denounced against them, by the speaker 
in the gospel, who was, in his day, what I am called in mine, 
the devil's chaplain ; and who said to the chief priests and law- 
yers, what T say to them too : '^Wo unto you, hypocrites, for 
ye have taken away the key of knowledge ; ye enter not in 
yourselves, and them that were entering in, ye hindered." 
Luke xi. With that key, I now present you, in the moral cer- 
tainty, that by Zion, was never meant any place on earth, but 
the great circle of the starry heavens ; as the stone laid for a 
foundation in that Zion, the sure foundation, is that first of the 



1 

"I 



THE devil's pulpit. 159 

signs of the Zodiac, from which the whole vaulty arch of 
Heaven takes its spring, which the sun enters in the month of 
January. 

^^ And he that helieveth^^ — that is, he who understandeth the 
science hidden under this allegory, so as to know the bearings 
and positions of this first of the constellations, he will not maJce 
haste : — that is, he will become an accurate chronologer, and 
will be able to keep his account of time, with the accuracy of 
an almanac, through the whole acceptable year of the Lord. 

As the astrologue in the New Testament, rebukes his hearers 
for their stupidity, ** a wicked and adulterous generation" — that 
is, going ad ultera, looking to the stars that lie without the 
band of the Zodiac, "seeketh for a sign from heaven, and there 
shall no sign be given them, but the sign of the prophet — that 
is, the foreteller of future events, the prophet Jonah" — that is, 
Aquarius, the Water-bearer; because, if you don't understand 
that, you are too stupid ever to make any proficiency in astron- 
omy ; but understanding that, you will soon be able to decipher 
all the rest — as thus : — 

1. January, is Saint Peter, Aquarius. 

2. February, is Saint Judas Iscariot, the Fishes : that fellow 
betrayed his master, and lost a day, as St. Peter, in the Acts of 
the Apostle explains expressly, '' that he might go to his own 
place." 

3. March, is St. Andrew, the brother of Peter; because, 
formerly, the year was reckoned to begin in March ; and, there- 
fore, equal honor is due to them both. And Andrew is univer- 
sally distinguished by his standing before a Saltier cross, the 
cross like the letter X, which is a goniometer, or exact measure 
of the angle which the sun makes in crossing the equator, as he 
does in the month of March. 

4. April, is Matthew, the Taurus, or Bull of the Zodiac, as 
you see all representations of St. Matthew, with a bull's head 
at his foot, as if of purpose to show us, what the proper under' 
standing of the thing is. 

5. May, is John, the disciple which Jesus loved. 

6. June, is Thomas, or Didyraus, directly rising out of the 



160 THE devil's pulpit. 

Twins: yet himself, a crabbed sort of a fellow, that toward the 
last had half a mind to go backward. 

7. July, is James the Greater. 

8. August, is Judas, the brother of James. 

9. September, is James the Less, surnamed Oblia the Just, 
holding Libra, the balance of justice. 

10. October, is Nathaniel, whom Christ saw under the fig- 
tree, gathering in the last remaining fruits of the year, and 
called by Philip. 

IL November, was Philip, whose very name signifies lover 
of a horse ; as you see his characteristic in the Sagittarius of 
the Zodiac, who is always represented as half a man and half 
a horse, or so passionately attached to the sports of the field, as 
always to be on horseback. And you have this curious defi- 
nition, John i. 44: '* Now Philip was of Bethsaida" — Beth- 
saida literally signifying the house of hunters : and, 

12. December, is Simon, the Canaanite. 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON SAINT PETER. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS.''— Allan Cunningham. 

JUDAS ISCARIOT VINDICATED. 

A SERMON, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 

ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, MARCH 6, 1831. 



" Rise^ let us be going: Behold, he is at hand that doth betray 
me. And while he yet spake, lo ! Judas, one of the twelve,^' — 
Matthew xxvi. 46. 



This is the first passage in which the name of Judas occurs; 
except we reckon that, in the 13th of this holy gospel, in which 
a Judas is mentioned, who, together with Joses and Simon, are 
spoken of as the immediate brothers of our blessed Savior, be- 
sides a whole posse of sisters — for the Virgin Mary was the 
mother of a very large family: the only thing to be regretted 
is, that his brethren, who must have known him best, had none 
the better opinion of him, for that better knowledge, they were 
all of them infidels, as we are expressly assured. John vii. 5, 
that ** neither did his brethren believe in him.^^ Familiarity, 
you see, breeds contempt. If you really wish to love your Sa- 
vior, the less you know of him the better : knowledge is al. 
ways fatal to devotion. I should have been as good a Christian 
as anybody, if I had not learnt my book. 

I have, in my last discourse, proved, even to absolute dem- 
onstration, that the first of the apostles, St. Peter, is a purely 

11 



162 THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

imaginary being ; that, like his master, Jesus Christ, he never 
had any real existence : but is of that order of romantic and 
ideal personifications which weak and disordered minds nat- 
urally fall into: he is nothing more than a varied embodying 
of the JEsculapius of ihe Greeks, the Janus of the Romans, the 
Reuben of the patriarchate, the Jonah of the Ninevites, the 
Aquarius of the Zodiac, the January of the almanac, the John 
the Baptist of the churches, and the Jack Frost of the nurseries. 
We come, now, to the less distinctly drawn, but equally im- 
aginary, characters of the rest of the glorious company of the 
apostles — that word always signifying the bright and shining 
company. 

And here the pretence to anything like history, or historical 
probability, receives its first shock from the astronomical char- 
acter of the name itself. 

The disciples or learners, being changed into apostles, a name 
that could not have been given to mere messengers or itinerant 
preachers, and could not have occurred to the unscientific and 
illiterate conceptions of a Jewish peasant, as Jesus Christ, had 
he been a real personage, must be supposed to have been. 

Then, again, why are the names of nine out of these twelve 
apostles, being supposed to be Jews, such names as the like of 
which no Jews were ever called by. As every one knows, ev- 
ery country had a sort and order of names peculiar to itself; and 
you would no more find such names as Andrew, James, John, 
Philip, Thomas, and the rest of them in Judea, than you would 
find Tom Smith, Richard Jones, or Jack Robinson, at the court 
of the king of the Cannibal islands. 

Then, again, why should there be just exactly twelve of 'em, 
and no more nor less than just that astronomical number twelve, 
so nicely corresponding to the twelve months of the year, and 
the twelve signs of the Zodiac ? 

And this number twelve, so absolutely necessary to be made 
up, and kept up, that eleven would be one too few, and thirteen 
would be one too many ; so that, though there were 120 disci- 
ples, there must be but twelve apostles: and, in the first diap- 
er of the Acts of the apostles, we find the eleven, after the rcsur- 



THE devil's pulpit. 163 

rection of their Divine Master, assembled in a large upper room, 
God forbid that we should think that large upper room was a 
garret, or the first floor down the chimney. I dare say it was 
a very respectable lodging, and a great deal nearer Heaven than 
any garret in Grub street. Here, then, they were in the garret 
(God forgive me !), in the vrrepo^ov^ in the large upper room, 
casting lots — that is, tossing up a halfpenny, the best out of two 
and three, for the appointment of one, that was wanting to 
make up the complete dozen, by supplying the place of the 
traitor Judas, who, as St. Peter tells us, had something the 
matter with his bowels, and so lost his bishopric, all which is 
explained to us, as clear as everything else is explained, by the 
application of a text of the book of Psalms: "' For it is written 
in the hook of Psalms^ Let his habitation he desolate ; and let no 
man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take,''^ How 
soon, ye see, were these holy apostles on the scramble for the 
bishoprics. 

The see that Judas had vacated was not long left undisposed 
of; there were two candidates, of whom, one was to be ordain- 
ed, says St. Peter, ** to be witnesses with us of the resurrection 
of the Lord Jesus.'^^ 

Though neither of the candidates had been any more witnes- 
ses of the resurrection than I or you. And how the devil, if 
there had been any reality in the transaction, could a man be 
ordained a witness, of that which he had really not witnessed ? 
And if he really had witnessed it, why should it depend upon 
the toss-up of a halfpenny, whether he sliould be allowed to be 
a witness of it or not ? If Joseph, whose surname was Justus, 
which signifies a just man, had really been a witness of the 
resurrection of Christ, why should the world be deprived of his 
testimony, merely because he happened to cry tail when it turn- 
ed up a head, or because thirteen would have been loo many 
witnesses, or because the luck fell to Matthias, whose name 
signifies a gift? (a word devilishly like a bribe), and he was 
numbered with the apostles. So he got the bishopric, as all 
other bishops get their bishoprics, the Lord knows how ; and 
having got it, like all other bishops, he lies snug, and the devil 



164 THE devil's pulpit. 

a bit do ye hear of him any more ; except that our church, for 
a reason which none of your preachers of the gospel can tell 
you, and I can, have fixed, a feast on the 24th of February, and 
a fast on the 23d of February, to make ready for the feast, in 
honor of Bishop Matthias, on which occasion, she says that 
pretty prayer, ** Almighty God, who, into the place of the 
traitor Judas, didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias, to 
be of the number of the twelve apostles; grant that thy 
church, being always preserved from false apostles, may be 
ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord Ammon." The 24th of February being the 
place of the Bissextile in the calendar of Julius Caesar, where, 
in order that Judas might go to his own place, which is the 
sun's highest point of ascension, from which he is betrayed, or 
drawn down, a new day was introduced, and thus the gospel 
allegory was made to preserve its perfect coincidence with the 
acceptable year of the Lord, 

Now see what havoc a little criticism will play with your 
gospel history, and you will no more wonder that your clergy, 
and all their satellites, should labor by all means in their power 
to deter you from the exercise of that dangerous faculty — 
as thus: — 

Why is Peter the speaker and arranger of the whole affair, 
in this election of the new apostle ? 

Did it become him who, with oaths and curses, denied his 
Master, and whose treason, therefore, was not a whit less than 
that of Judas, to be the first for calling for a filling up of the 
place ''from which Judas, by transgression, fell"? 

And why should not the repentance of Judas have been as 
acceptable to God, as the repentance of Peter, seeing the repent- 
ance of Judas was accompanied with fruits worthy of repent- 
ance, he gave the greatest proof of sincerity that man could 
give. He brought back the one pound ten — i, e., thirty pieces 
of silver, which I beseech you to observe, doth make exactly a 
shilling a day for every day of the month, with two shillings to 
spare, if that monih should happen to be February, and with 
only one shilling to spare, if that February should happen to 



THE devil's pulpit. 165 

be in leap-year: whereas Peter only w^e/i^ out and blubbered, 
and then wiped his eyes, and was as merry as ever. 

The accounts of the last catastrophe of Judas, in the gospel, 
and in the Acts of the Apostles, are utterly irreconcilable — so 
egregiously and flagrantly irreconcilable — that no Christian who 
would wish to be thought capable of honest criticism, would 
attempt to maintain that they possibly can be reconciled — as 
thus ; — 

The Judas of the Gospels, repented. 

The Judas of the Acts, did not repent. 

The Judas of the Gospel, despaired in his iniquity. 

The Judas of the Acts, triumphed in his iniquity. 

The Judas of the Gospel, returned the money. 

The Judas of the Acts, kept the money. 

The Judas of the Gospel, bore an honorable testimony to the 
innocence of Christ. 

The Judas of the Acts, bore no such testimony. 

The Judas of the Gospel, gave back the whole sum he had 
received to the priests, who put it into the treasury. 

The Judas of the Acts, bought a field with it. 

The Judas of the Gospel, hanged himself. 

The Judas of the Acts, died by an accident. 

The Judas of the Gospel, met a death that was entirely 
natural. 

The Judas of the Acts, met a death that was entirely 
miraculous. 

So that, most likely, like the death of Christ, it was no death 
at all. For who knows but that it might have been like-master 
like-man. 

And Judas might have got over his suicide or fatal accident 
(whichever it was) as Christ got over his crucifixion, so as to 
be none the worse for it, a day or two after : which, indeed, is 
more than intimated in the sacred text, from which we learn, 
that after he had fallen headlong [np^v^g yevoncvog)^ and burst 
asunder in the midst — cXaK^e ixcaoq — that is, split into two 
halves, and all his bowels pushed out, in some way or other, 
which God knows best ; he stuck his two halves together, and 



166 THE devil's pulpit. 

went home, whistling as if nothing had happened : as we are 
expressly told, in words whose very curious meaning has never 
yet been trusted to the understandings of Christian audiences, 
that it was the apostleship, ''from which Judas, by transgres- 
sion, fell, that he might go to his own pi ace. '^ 

The words of the original Greek, rendered literally and 
syllabically, as they ought to be, are still more curiously (and 
to me, delightfully) enigmatical, £| m -api/3r] h Ja?, Tropsvdrjpaif 

eig Tov TOnOv tov lSiov, 

Out of ichich passed over Iou-Das, to he carried to the place, 
which was his proper place. 

The words rendered, "from which lou Das, by transgression, 
fell," by no means imply any moral fall, or any fault or crime 
which lou Das had committed, but merely and literally a pass- 
ing over, that he might go to his own place, as I must pass 
over Blackfriars bridge to-night, to go to my own place. 

It is true, indeed, that there are a few passages, which, by a 
false punctuation, or collocation of the words; and in that 
stupid way of jumping at a conclusion, upon insufficient prem- 
ises, are made to bear a sense dishonorable to the character of 
this holy apostle. 

But these, when properly arranged, and the stops put in, in 
their right places, will be found to bear a wholly different 
meaning. 

As, where Judas seems to be called a devil, and the son of 
perdition ; and it is said, the Son of Man goeth, indeed, as it 
is written of him ; hut xoo unto that man hy whom the Son of 
Man is hetrayed. It had heen good for that man if he had not 
heen horn.''^ And where Jesus says, *' Have not I chosen you 
twelve, and one of you is a devil V^ It is evident that it was 
not Judas Iscariot that was the devil, but Simon Peter ; for an 
express exception is made in favor of Judas, in those words im- 
mediately following : ''for he knew who it was that should he- 
tray him'''* — that is, he knew it was not he that was the devil, as 
he as certainly knew that it was Simon Peter that was the devil, 
when he expressly said to him, " Get thee behijad me, Satan ;" 
and the devil's in it, if it was not far more likely to be the devil 



THE devil's pulpit. 167 

that wanted to prevent Christ from suffering, for our redemption, 
as did Peter, than he who betrayed him to suffer, as did St. 
Judas. 

The Greek word for who betrayed him, a rrapaSiSftg, is nothing 
more than he who gave him up : and instead of implying an act 
of treason or crime, implies an act of the highest benevolence 
and charity. 

The clause in the prayer of Jesus, '* Those whom thou hast 
given me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of 
perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled ;'''' when properly 
collocated, should run thus: ** None of them is lost but the 
son, that the scripture of perdition might be filled up ;" so that 
there might be no room left for anybody to come into perdition. 

And as for Judas having the devil in him, and the devil having 
put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray him ; this, in- 
stead of being any proof of the guilt of Judas, in betraying 
Christ, if guilt there were, is the strongest possible proof of his 
innocence. 

And if the devil entered into Judas, have we not a fair right 
to inquire who the devil it was that let the devil into him ? 
And who should that be but Christ himself? For immediate- 
ly after he had given him the sop, Satan entered into him. So 
that if Satan really were a bad spirit, as some who know noth- 
ing about spirits, would pretend, the act of Jesus, in giving 
Judas the sop, dipped in such a spirit, was little less than setting 
a gin to catch his soul : and then, forsooth, he calls Judas the 
son of perdition, after he himself had given him a dose of blue 
ruin. Now, if there really were any treason in the case, who 
was the traitor but Christ himself, who invited his victim to 
supper, and then poisoned him, most literally, played the devil 

with him, gave him such a d d bad spirit, as not merely 

got up into his head, but worked in another way so fatally, 
that all his bowels gushed out. And, indeed, Jesus himself 
seems to have been well aware of the operation of the dose that 
he had given the poor man, by telling him to leave the room 
immediately. ''What thou doest,^^ says he, ''do quickly.''- 
Tudas had only time enough, before he died, to point out to the 



168 THE devil's pulpit. 

officers cf justice who it was, not whom he had betrayed, but 
who had betrayed hun. But if this be not the true way of un- 
derstanding the whole affair; and by the spirit which was sopped 
up into the sop, that Jes gave to Judas, was meant no sort of 
aquafortis, gin, hollands, or rum, or whiskey, heightened with 
vitriolic acid, but the real incarnate eternal devil himself; why, 
then, it turns up that we have been mistaking our friend for our 
enemy all this while ; and the devil it was — the devil himself 
— who was the prime agent, and all-directing power in the great 
work of human redemption. He it is, whose minister I am ; 
my master Satan, who is alone entided to be called our blessed 
Savior. He it is, to whom we ought to feel infinitely obliged. 
But for the part which he played in the scheme, all would have 
been lost. We should all have been damned — Jesus would 
have shirked out of it. He would not have suffered for our sins, 
and there should we have been left in the lurch to suffer for 
them ourselves ; which, with reverence be it spoken, would 
have been a damnation case. 

Nor is there any definition of goodness and virtue, which a 
Christian can give, which is not included in that truly merito- 
rious action. 

For, first, you shall observe, that, setting aside the carnal 
judgment of the natural man, which discerneth not the things 
of the spirit of G-od, Judas, so far as be was a free agent in 
the affair, made the word of God the sole guide and rule of his 
actions. 

Now, how could such a man possibly be an immoral charac- 
ter? For where will you find such an excellent system of morals 
as in the Bible ? And to whom are we to look for examples 
of fidelity, faithfulness, goodness, and truth, if not to the im- 
mediate apostles of our blessed Savior ? Judas, in betraying his 
divine master, did nothing but the very act which he was fore- 
ordained, and commanded by God, and inspired by the Holy 
Ghost, to do. And if such an act could possibly be criminal, 
and so criminal, too, as to deserve eternal damnation, or (what 
is a great deal worse than eternal damnation) to lose a bishopric, 
why, there's a sheer end of all distinction between obeying the 



THE devil's pulpit. 169 

•will of God, and disobeying it : and a man might as well make 
reason the rule of his actions, as the Bible. 

For, so strictly conscientious was Judas (I«-das) to observe 
the law of God in all his actions, that, though he might have 
made a much better bargain with the chief priests, and sold 
his master for ten times the sun, yet he so subdued all selfish 
and mercenary motives, that he asked no more than the thing 
he had to dispose of was worth, that was, one pound ten. 
Thirty pieces of silver, that being the price which God, in his 
infinite wisdom, was pleased to determine was as much as it 
was worth. 

And that Judas was actuated by no motives of malice, ill- 
will, or unkindness against our blessed Savior, but quite the 
contrary, is proved by the fact, that when he came to Jesus, in 
the last interview they ever had, he said, *'Hail, master!" and 
kissed him. And Jesus seems to have kissed him in return ; as 
the words of the sacred text are: ^^ And Jesus said unto him^ 
* Friend, wherefore art thou come?^^^ which, in ordinary par- 
lance, is neither more nor less than *' My dear hoy, how d^ye 
do /" than which nothing could be more affectionate : so that it 
seems they clapped their beards together, and slobbered like two 
cupids in a valentine. Jesus said to Judas, " Friend." 

Now, I would only ask, what right our Christians have to 
give their blessed Savior the lie, and to charge him with the 
disgusting hypocrisy of calling Judas his friend, if he really 
took him to be his enemy ? And if he really took him to be an 
enemy, and only called him friend ironically, why did he not 
suit his action to his word, so that the one might have inter- 
preted the other; and when the fellow thrust his dirty beard in 
his face, give him such a ringer in the chops, as would have 
shown decidedly what sort of a friend he took him to be. 

And how could any two persons on earth be more decidedly 
shown to be friends, than Jesus and Judas, as not merely ex- 
changing such affectionate salutations, as, 1 thank God, are out 
of fashion in the civilized world, sitting at the same table, and 
dipping their fingers together in the same disL — for knives and 
forks, and spoons, are infidel inventions — but co-operating in 



170 THE devil's prLriT. 

the same great counsel of infinite vrisdom, for the redemption 
of mankind. 

And as for the betraying of Jesus, being represented as a 
crime, or a disgrace, or a shameful act in Judas, it is the most 
egregious and monstrous misrepresentation of the matter, that 
folly itself could have been so foolish as to have dreamed of. 

For to betray Christ, was so far from being a dishonorable, 
disgraceful, or wicked act, that there was not one of the disci- 
ples but what was anxious to do it. So, thai when Jesus said, 
*' Verily, I say inito you, that one of you shall letray r/ze," they 
were all on the scramble in a moment to obtain the honor of 
doing it : and the cry was, ** Lord, is it i.?" *' Lord, is it /.?" 
when Jesus was pleased to settle the dispute, in favor of Judas, 
by saymg, '' He is it to whom I shall give a sop, when I have 
dipped it [in the pan] ;" and when he had dipped the sop, he 
gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon — that is, the son of 
Simon Peter, which accounts for Simon Peter being so envious 
of his son Judas being promoted before him, that he could 
never speak a good word of him afterward ; and wbich was a 
literal fulfilment of that prophecy of Christ, in which he said 
that he was come to set the son against the father, and the 
father against the son. So Simon Peter, when he found that 
his son, Judas Iscariot, had got the thirty shillings, was so vexed, 
that he went out and wept bitterly, and cursed and swore that 
he never would be reconciled to his son any more. 

For how could a greater partiality be shown to any man, 
than by almost giving him the very victuals out of your mouth, 
helping him to the choice bit, sopping up the grav}' of the dish, 
and reaching your hand over the table, dish and all, to afford 
him the advantage of licking the grease oflfyour fingers. Aw 
there can be no doubt that our blessed Savior's fingers werf 
purer than all the silver spoons in the world. Thus Judas wai 
elected to the honor of betraying Christ, and by coming up a 
the very crisis, when otherwise his virtue would have failed, 
pushing him on when he wanted to push off, and getting him in 
for it, when he wanted to get out of it, he was actually the 



THE devil's pulpit. 171 

meritorious agent, and the very hinge and pivot on which the 
whole chance of our salvation was on the swing. 

It is the grossest absurdity, then, to talk of our being saved 
through the merits of Jesus Christ ; when, upon coming to 
read the gospel for yourself, you shall see, that if there were 
any merits in the business, they were the merits of Judas 
Iscariot. 

And as for the peculiar merit of dying for us — that is, so 
far from belonging to Christ, that it is peculiarly and exclusive- 
ly the merit of Judas. Judas Iscariot is the only one spoken 
of in the gospel, whose death was matter of his own choice, 
and therefore his was the only death which could, by any pos- 
sibility, be conceived to have merit in it. It is evident that 
Jesus would not have been hanged, if he could have helped it. 
But Judas hanged himself. 

As St. Peter, and the other apostles, in the 5th of the Acts 
of the Apostles, concur in a direct contradiction to the accounts 
of each of the four gospels, by declaring to the Jews, not that 
they had crucified Jesus, which, God knows, they never did, 
but that they slew him, and hanged him on a tree ; which is 
quite as true as the other story. 

For, be it remembered, that the flattest and most palpable 
contradictions that can be put into words, are no contradictions 
in Scripture ; thus, no sincere Christian doubts, or can doubt, 
not only that Judas Iscariot hanged himself, but that he abso- 
lutely did not hang himself. And that it is equally true, that 
he returned the money for which he betrayed his master, and 
that he did not return the money. 

And the disciples of Christ could never doubt that he was 
crucified, dead, buried, and gone to hell, even at the very mo- 
ment, when he was as much alive as we are at this moment, 
and asking them what they had got for supper, as on that in- 
teresting occasion he said to them, " Children, have ye any meat V' 

So, nothing incompatible with the character of historical con- 
sistency has ever yet been observed by the childish understand- 
ngs of the forty and fifty year old babes in Christ Jesus, in the 
circumstance of Peter, a Jew, at Jerusalem, preaching to the 



172 THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

Jews, telling them what the name of the field was, in the Jew- 
ish langaage, that it was called, in their proper tongue, Acel- 
dama ; but as their proper tongue, their native language, was 
a language that none of the natives had ever heard of, he kindly 
condescended to translate it into plain English — Aceldama, that 
that is to say, the field of hlood. 

How sublimely accurate is Scriptural chronology : the field 
had got a name from the transaction, before the transaction 
had taken place. It was a matter of very high antiquity, when 
it had occurred within the last fortnight ; and it was known to 
all them that dwelt at Jerusalem, when all them that dwelt at 
Jerusalem knew no more about it than it knew about them. 

But why. above all things which Judas might have bought, 
should he have bought a field ? 

And why, above all deaths which Judas might have chosen, 
should he have chosen to hang himself? 

And why should his buying a field, cause him to fall headlong? 

And why should his failing headlong, cause his bowels to 
gush out ? 

And why should the field be called Aceldama ? 

And why was he called Is A.^,- ? 

And why was Ic ti^ also called Iscariot ? 

And why was K-Das Iscariot, also called the son of Simon? 

The bringing forth of the latent astronomical sense, will solve 
all these questions. 

Judas is the same name as Judah, which is the name of one 
of the twelve tribes of Israel. Iscariot is the same aslssachar, 
which is another of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 
Issachar is the sixth of the twelve tribes of Israel, answering to 
Cancer 1 the Crab, of the month of Jtme, in the centre of which 
constellation, are the stars, called the asses ; which gives us 
the clear astronomical solution of that extraordinary blessing 
which Israel pronounces upon the twelve patriarchs, applying" 
to Issachar, in the 49Lh of Genesis, the words, ^'Issachar ts a 
strong ass, couching doicn between two burdens; and he saw 
that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and horr- 
ed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute ' 



THE devil's pulpit. 173 

Now, here is the strong ass, which Issachar, without any in- 
tended affront, is literally said to be ; and which strong ass, in 
an inferior and earlier state of astronomical observation, would 
give its name to the whole constellation, which, by taking in a 
great many of the surrounding stars, is now enlarged into the 
constellation of Cancer, the Crab of the month of June. 

This ass, is said to couch down between two boundaries^ as 
it stands precisely on the line that bounds the two halves of 
the zodiacal year. 

*' And he saw that rest was good:" the sun having reached 
this point, is said to be at the summer solstice, where it seems 
to be perfectly stationary, for several days, as if it would wish 
to rest in that state, ** for he saw the land that it was pleasant ;" 
the whole earth never appearing more delightful than in the 
month of June. 

But this Issachar of the Old Covenant — this Iscariot of the 
New — that is, this Jack Ass, between the two boundaries of 
the old astronomy, this back-sliding Crab of the new ; standing, 
at the sun's highest point of ascension, betrays him with a kiss. 
He gets him up into the large upper room, than which he can 
g^ no higher, and then gives him to understand, that down he 
must come. 

The astronomical chronology being beautifully veiled in the 
allegorical picture, which represents to us, that immediately 
when Judas went out — that is, the latter end of the month of 
June ; then said the Jesus of the allegory — (that is, the sun in 
the visible heavens) : '*■ Now is the Son of Man clarified, and 
God is clarified in him. If God be clarified in him, God shall 
also clarify him in himself, and shall straightway clarify him, 
little children .'" that is to say, there's for you, little children 
—there's your favorite game — there's 

" Riddle me, riddle me, re, 
None are so blind as those that won^t see." 

jbu ^<»t tne little children, the babes and sucklings of the 
gospel, snow wit enough to unriddle me their riddle, and I 



174 THE devil's pulpit. 

myself will put on a pin-a-fore, and go to school again, to the 
infant academy in Silver street. 

I want to know how the Son of man could be clarified 
straight-way, but in no other way than the straight-way ? Had 
It been in the cross-way, or the reverse way, or the crooked- 
"way, there would have been some grievous error in the 
reckoning ? Answer. Because the apparent path* of the sun, 
through the visible heavens, is within the perfectly straight 
band of the tropics. 

And why should this clarification have happened in no other 
place than in that large upper room ? Answer. Because the 
sun's most transcendent beauty and brightness are attained when 
he reaches the tropic of Cancer — that is, at the moment when 
he kisses Iscariot, or, which is the same thing, when Iscariot 
kisses him ? 

Why should this clarification have happened just at no other 
time than when Judas was going out ? Answer. Because that 
is the exact allegorization of the latter end of June? 

And why should Judas hang himself? Answer. Because all 
the twelve apostles are hanged as well as he, each self-suspend- 
ed from the vaulty arch of night, where you may see them, 
each hanging in his particular field, or portion of the heavens ; 
where they retain their fixed positions, and where the righteous, 
not figuratively, but literally, do shine as the stars in the king- 
dom of their father ? 

And why did Judas, hung m the skies, as all the rest of them 
are, after betraying his master — that is, having led him up to 
the point, from which his fall commences, himself fall head- 
long, -prjvrig yEvoiJcvoi — that is, becomc prone ? Answer. Because, 
when the sun has passed through the constellation, the constel- 
lation itself seems to be tumbling doAvn ? 

And why, when Judas become prone, headlong, did all his 
bowels gush out? Answer. Because, when the constellation 
through which the sun has passed, by the sun's passing onward 
seems to emerge or come out on the other side, the stars of 
which it is composed, appear much fainter chan they were, as 
if the sun, in going over them, had trampled out their fires. 



THE devil's pulpit. 175 

And why, when Judas goes out, is the Son of man clarified, 
and when the Son of man is clarified, God is clarified in him : 
and when God is clarified in him, God returns the compliment 
by clarifying him in himself? My God ! why, or how is all 
this, but by that clear and universal metonymy, which obtain- 
ed exactly in the pagan mythology, as it does in the Christian, 
whereby each one of the twelve great gods, was in turn substi- 
tuted, and spoken of, and invested with all the attributes of any 
other, and of all the rest, and each in its turn, when considered 
as Lord of the ascendant, was the one supreme and only Lord. 

Duodotheism was perfectly consistent with Monotheism — 
the same deity that was god in summer, became the devil in 
winter ; ** and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into 
an angel of light." 

So Jupiter was often turned into Apollo, Apollo back again 
into Jupiter — the rule of orthodoxy being 

Et? Zeus', £'? ArJrj?, eis riAiofj eis Aioi^oaos, 
Etj deos £v navTeaci, 

There is, then, no more real contradiction in there being 
twelve persons in one God, each by himself, being separately 
and distinctively the one true and only God, than in there being 
three persons in one God, in the Christian Trinity. 

It being the same sun, through the whole year round, though 
there be a January sun, a February sun, and so on ; and it is 
the same sun which was the January sun, which is now the 
March sitn, and will be the July and August sun. 

And you will find as many distinct moral characters of your 
Jesus, in your gospel allegory, as there are physically varied 
phenomena of the sun: in passing through the twelve months 
of the year. For 

"These, as they change, Almighty Father! these 
Are but the varied God — the rolling year 
Is full of thee." 

And hence, not only the names of Peter, Andrew, James, 
John, and the rest of them, but the name of Judas Iscariot is 
one ot the names of that 7roXtiwi'v//oj/ Ami^oji/^ that manu-nanied 



176 THE devil's pulpit. 

demon, by which was never meant anything else than the sun 
hrimself. 

The name Judas, the same as Judah, generally translated 
the praise of the Jew — that is, of the Lord, is a compound of 
the two Ammonian names of god leue, pronounced leve, whence 
the pagan god Jove, and the Christian Jehovah, and Dah, Dis, 
Das, the day, the god of day, and Iscariot, signifying he that 
cuts off or exterminates, as the month of June puts an end to 
the sun's further ascension, and begins to shorten all days. This 
constellation, upon being personified as they all are, gets the 
allegorical character of a murderer, and the field, or portion of 
the heavens, in which this sign of the Zodiac is literally hang" 
ed, and where, atheistically speaking, z7 hanged itself, gets the 
allegorical name of Aceldama, the light, universal blood, or the 
field of blood. 

As the name Jesus itself is really none other than the ancient 
Persic name for the sun, with a Latin termination, the radical 
word itself, I. ES, signifying I, the one, the alone ; and E8, 
the fire — that is, the one great fire, which is the sun, and 
which, worshipped under the name Hercules, compounded 
of c'N ^3 T>^, the light, the universal fire, which was the same 
Jesus Christ, and under the name -^sculapius, compounded 
of ::n :?:! -^n, the fire, the universal father, which was the same 
Jesus Christ, and under the Greek name of KnoWojv, Apollo — 
that is, apart the many, which v/as the same Jesus Christ, and 
under the Latin of Sol, or Solus, the One, the Alone, which is 
the same Jesus Christ. 

And under the reverentially repeated name oi On, the Being, 
ON — I — iN, the Being, the One, the Being, the self-same Deity, 
the sun was worshipped, by the ancient Egyptians. As the 
sacred name, Onion, was also the name of the great temple of 
the sun, at Heliopolis. This gave occasion to those, whose ob- 
ject was to inquire into the real meaning of things as little as 
possible, to accuse the Egyptians of worshipping onions. 

The onion, receivmg that Egyptian name, from the curious 
analogy, that if you cut it through horizontally, thetwo sections 
present a resemblance of the solar system : the sun in the cen- 
tre, and the orbits of the plants, which revolve round it, making 
up the whole substance of the root. 

Thus, by looking at it, you may contemplate heavenly won- 
ders, and by smelling at it you may shed tears of as sincere de- 
votion as any sensible man could wish to shed ; and if, after 
having looked at it, and smelt it, you should have a mind to eat it, 
it would be the most sensible way I know of taking the sacrament. 

END OF THE DISCOURSE ON JUDAS ISCARIOT 
VINDICATED. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT JS.''— Allan Cunningham. 

SAINT THOMAS: 

A SERMON, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESSES CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 

ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, MARCH 13, 183L 



^* Bui Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them 
when Jesus came* The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, 
^ We have seen the Lord,' But he said unto them, ' Except I shall 
see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not 6e- 
lieve.' '' — John xx. 24. 



No more will I. But, my God ! then Tommy, you will be 
damned to all eternity — you unbelieving wretch — you devil's 
chaplain — you'll go to hell, as sure as your name's Tommy ! 
And here have we the origin of that curious association of idea, 
which obtains not merely in our common English phrase, hell 
and Tommy, but which is found in the language of every nation 
on which the sun hath ever shone, from the Ganges to the 
Nile, from the Nile to the Thames. 

In India, in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, in the language of 
every nation in which a belief of the existence of a hell is to be 
found (and wherever there are knaves and fools, that belief is 
to be found), hell and Tommy, or the terms answering in their 
languages to those terms, stand in as natural and inseparable 

12 



178 THE devil's pulpit. 

an association with each other, as boiled beef and mustard. 
You could not think of the one, without immediately ihinking 
on the other 

With the reason and the science of this curious association 
of idea, I will presently repay your attention, only requesting 
you for a few minutes to suspend your admiration, on the peg 
of your observance of the parity of the association of the devil 
and Judas, and hell and Tommy ; in which, as Judas seems to 
be something worse than the devil, so Thomas is the climax, 
or something worse than hell. You may go to hell, and come 
back again. As we read of Jesus Christ, that ** he descended 
into hell, but the third day he rose again :" whereas, if he had 
gone to hell and Tommy, his soul must have been left in hell, 
and his flesh would have seen corruption — that is, as far as a 
dead man could see anything. 

The passage in continuation of our text, runs thus: ^^ And 
after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas 
with them ; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in 
the midst, and said, 'Peace be unto you.^ Then said he to 
Thomas, ' Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and 
reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not 
faithless, but believing:^ and Thomas answered, and said unto 
him, ' My Lord, and my God P Jesus saiih unto him, * Thomas, 
because thou hast seen me, thou hast beliei^ed : Blessed are they 
that have not seen, and yet have believed.'* ^^ 

On any attempt to give a character of history to this beauti- 
ful allegorical grouping, nothing could be conceived grosser 
than the outrageous and monstrous absurdities, and direct con- 
tradictions to itself, which the story so perverted presents us : 
the fool that could believe it, could believe anything. The 
knave who would say that he believed it, would say anything. 

For here is supposed to be the body of a man, presenting him- 
self, for the express purpose of demonstrating to the senses of 
his friends, that he was no phantom, no shadow, no smoke, but 
might be seen and felt ; and yet, coming into the room when 
the doors were shut, as most certainly no body that was solid and 
substantial, could possibly have done, or even be conceived to do. 



THE deytl's pulpit. 179 

And if the body were solid, and could be seen and felt, then 
IS the pretence, that Christ had really been crucified, and put 
to death, demonstrated to be a cheat and a lie, by evidence, as 
strong as ever was adduced to prove that a thing could he 
and not he at the same time. 

For if the presence of a man alive, m health, in strength — you 
see him, you hear him, you touch him, you shake hands with 
him, you converse with him, you eat and drink with him — be 
not a proof that whoever had asserted that that man had been 
dead, was a liar, then there is no difference between lying and 
truth among men ; and God Almighty should better take away 
the reason he has given us, than have made us reasonable, to 
insult us so offensively. 

Not all the testimony on earth, not all the hosts of heaven, 
not God himself, nor his Almighty power, could make it he, oi 
seem to be, that the man who is found alive to-day, had been 
really and truly dead, any two, three, or ten days before to-day. 
And the Christian religion, if such be its foundation, is founded 
on the most monstrous lie that ever falsehood framed or folly 
credited. 

The only line in the whole romance, on which relief of its 
monstrous inconsistency might hang, is the supposition, that 
Thomas and the rest of them (had such persons really existed, 
as I shall prove to you they never did) might have expressed 
their astonishment, not at Jesus's being alive, but at the mistake 
they had made in supposing that he had ever been dead; of 
which, his appearance, if a real appearance it were, was, what 
would be called in all reason, a sufficient proof to the contrary. 

The cause of which mistake, still on the supposition of his- 
tory, Christ himself might have explained, as thus: "Pontius 
Pilate was my friend. He protected me from the rage of the 
mob, by bringing forth another criminal, dressed up in my 
clothes, and saying, * Behold the man ;' while his wife, who 
was in the secret, sent me away in woman's clothes." 

If history had been intended, which it certainly was not, this, 
and this only, would have been the historical reading. For 
^diittover is not probable, is not history, but romance. 



180 THE devil's pulpit. 

But come we now to the enucleation of the deep science in- 
volved in this romance. You shall see the gospel, rising above 
the low and grovelling conceptions of the intolerant and im- 
patient fools and dunces, whose vanity can not bear that any- 
body should be wiser than themselves, and presenting us with 
a beautiful drama, which had constituted the subject matter of 
the Diegesisy* from which the compiler of Luke's gospel ac- 
knowledges his work to be a compilation : and of the four mys- 
tical books which were carried by the priests in the sacred pro- 
cessions of the goddess Isis in Egypt, and of which the purport 
was — what, that of our gospels lo this day may demonstrably 
be proved to be, a representation of the notvrac history of the 
year, or of the sun in passing through the year, under the plea s^ 
ant fiction of an imaginary hero^ called Hercules and jEscula- 
pius, in Phoenicia ; Osiris, Adonis, and Thamuz, in Syria and 
Egypt ; Chrishna, in Judea ; Jesus, in Persia ; Christus, in 
Greece ; Apollo, Jupiter, and so forth, in Italy ; Hesus, in Ger- 
many, Gaul, Britain, &c. 

The name, part, and character of Saint Thomas, among the 
dramatis personcB of the evangelical pantomime, is one of the 
most marked and beautiful, as it most clearly conducts the 
studious inquirer to the solution of the whole enigma. 

The name Thomas, first occurs in the list of the names of the 
twelve apostles, in the 10th of Matthew's gospel, where it stands 
as the 7th ; but in the 3d of Mark's, and the 6th of Luke's gos- 
pel, it stands as the 8th in the apostolic series: Saint Peter, in 
every one of the lists, being invariably the first, and Saint Judas 
Iscariot, the 12th of the apostles. The character of Thomas 
appears in no other parts of the second scene, except this of his 
unbelief in the resurrection of Christ, that of his remark previous 
to the resurrection of Lazarus, in the 11th of St. John's gospel, 
when he said, in the contemplation that Jesus would die at Je- 
rusalem, ** Let us also go, that we may die with him,^^ that of 
hia> direct contradiction to Jesus, in the 14th of that gospel, 
when Jesus had said, ** Whither I go ye know, and the way ye 

* Hence the name which Mr. Taylor has given to hig great his- 
torical work, the Diegesis. 



THE devil's pulpit. 181 

know ;" and Tom said, ** We do not know whither thou goest ; 
and how can we know the way ?" And his share in the an- 
swer, which six of the disciples make to Peter, after Christ's 
resurrection, when he said, '' I go a fishing,-' ^^u^ they said, 
" We also go with thee,'^ Neither of the other gospels mention 
a word about Saint Thomas, more than his name in the list : 
and only this gospel of St. John, gives us his surname, or the 
interpretation of his name Thomas, ''which is called Didymus,^' 
that is to say, a Twin, or one of the Twins. 

Of which amount of the whole testimony, the sum is: — 

1st. That something more was known and understood of the 
part that Thomas should bear in the sacred allegory, by the 
writer of the 4th gospel, than by either of the writers of the 
first three gospels. 
2d. That it was not distinctly known, between Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, whether Thomas was the seventh or the 
eighth disciple. 

3d. That John, who has given us no list of the disciples at 
all, by interpreting for us the name Thomas, as signifying Didy- 
mus — that is to say, a Twin, has left it doubtful whether he 
might not have been the sixth or fifth in the glorious company. 

But, which ever he be, the essentiality of his character, is 
liis connexion with Jesus in the mystery of the resurrection, 
either in that resurrection of which Jesus is the agent, and 
raises the dead man, or that, in which he is the patient — that 
is, the dead man himself, who is to be raised. In the first 
enigma, we are instructed, that if Jesus were to die, Thomas 
would die : in the second, that if Jesus were not to rise again, 
or a doubt could possibly be entertained on that subject, Thomas 
would give up his place in the aposlleship. 

With this most curious analogy, that the state of doubt in 
Thomas's mind, as to whether his master was risen or not, 
lasted exactly eight days, andthen, his faith in Christ began 
at h.\^ fingers' ends. Seeing, was not believing; hearing, was 
not believing ; Thomas must have a finger in the pie, before he 
would be satisfied. He would not be content with ocuhir proof, 
nor oral proof— he would have tangible proof— and so would I, 



182 THE devil's pulpit. 

or any other sensible man, before I would believe anything that 
a dead man had to say for himself. 

That this tangible and feeling proof was afforded to Thomas, 
makes it only so much the more miraculous, and not a little bit 
unfair, that the like should have been withheld from the Lady 
Mary Magdalen, when she met her sweet Jesus, as Juliet met 
her Romeo, by moonlight, in the garden. And when she said 
to him, not Rabbi, as they say to a Jew, nor ud rabbit it, as you 
or I might have said, but Raiv-bony, But Raw-bones would not 
stand it, and said, " Touch me noty for I am not yet ascended to 
my Father." As if there were something in his bones that 
would not bear touching, till he had got a little more flesh on 
them ; which can not but lead us to look with a little severer 
criticism into the terms of the privilege granted to Thomas. 
And in adhering to the strict letter of the sacred text, you will 
tind that Thomas was not allowed to touch Christ, any more 
than Mary had been. He was not permitted to feel with his 
fingers, but he was to see with his fingers. The terms being, 
not " Reach hither thy finger, and feel, but reach hither thy 
finger, and behold.^^ 

So that Thomas, after all, saw no more of his Savior than a 
man could see with his fingers, " And reach hither thy hand, 
and thrust it into my side, which was a thing, if Jesus had 
really been a living man — absolutely impossible to have been 
done. Nor is it at all asserted or implied in the text that it was 
done. Only Thomas rapt out an oath, ** My Lord, and my 
God /" which Beza and the unitarians consider as a mere ejac- 
ulation of surprise and astonishment, as when anybody treads 
on our toe, we cry, ** O Lord /" or '' Good God /" (for which, God 
forgive us!) but which the trinitarians, and I with them, most 
sincerely hold to be a profession of faith — that is, a declaration 
of Thomas, that from that time forth he should hold the risen 
Jesus to be his Lord and his God. 

In the case of unbelieving Thomas, even if you choose to 
understand it as history, which I am sure it is not, you see, as 
in the majority of cases, from the beginning of Scripture to the 
end, the great advantage of being an infidel. It is not belief, 



THE devil's pulpit. 183 

but unbelief, that is the safe side. And let the gospel be the word 
of God, by which our souls shall be tried, all the hazard, ail the 
daring, all the likelihood to be eternally damned, and most richly 
to deserve to be damned, is incurred by the believer. 

A hundred texts pledge safety and security, and that he could 
not be on better ground than he is, to the honest infidel, for one 
that holds out a chance of salvation, to the fool of a believer. 
The infidel is as safe as the holy apostle Saint Thomas, who 
was not a whit more incredulous than every sensible man ought 
to be. The infidel is as safe as the immediate family and rela- 
tives of Christ himself, '^for neither did his brethren believe in 
himy John v. Whereas, the believer, who knew his Lord's 
will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes. The 
believer that said his prayers, for, and because of his saying 
his prayers, which no wise or good man would ever think of 
doing, " shall receive the greater damnation.''^ 

Why, then, this mighty hue and cry against unbelief — this 
beggarly tract circulating, this zealous preaching against unbe- 
lievers, as if there were no sin in the world but unbelief? But, 
because unbelief is fatal to priestcraft. Unbelief doth spoil 
the gospel trade : unbelief doth hinder the craftsmen of the 
money they would receive from letting their seats in their chap- 
els ; and hence it is, they would rather make their peace with 
the greatest murderer or thief that was ever hanged or unhanged, 
than have a good word to say for the best man that ever breathed, 
if he were an infidel. 

Thomas, like all the rest of the heroes of the gospel, is a 
character wholly unknown, unheard of, untraced, and untracea- 
ble, in any legends, but those of the Church of Rome, which no 
sensible man of the present day would any more think of quo- 
ting as history, than he would the ** Arabian 'Nights^ Entertain" 
ments,^^ or ** The History of the Seven Champions of Europe.''^ 

Origen, an Egyptian monk, quoted by Eusebius, tells us that 
Thomas went and preached to the Medes and Persians, ihe 
Caramanians, the Baskerians, and the magicians. He is gener- 
ally called the Apostle of India: and the Greek church profes- 
ses to believe that his body, after his death, was miraculously 



184 THE devil's pulpit. 

transported to Edessa. Some Portuguese writers assure us that 
he suffered martyrdom at Meliapour, in the peninsula of India ; 
while the Manichees affirm, that a man who struck him was 
killed by a lion. The whole protestant world is wisely aware, 
that the less inquiries of this sort are prosecuted, the better. All 
historical writers, without excepting one, have been infidels. 
They would never condescend to take the least notice of the 
heroes of theology. 

It was necessary to invent the story that one of the apostles 
had preached the gospel in India. St. Thomas, therefore, as 
the genius of that month in which the sun is hottest, was fixed on 
as the proper saint for that hot climate ; to counteract the awk- 
ward historical evidence found in the Bhagavat Pourana, which 
proves that the gospel had been preached in India, more than fif- 
teen hundred years before its Jewish origin had been pretended. 

Both of the names of Thomas, Thomas and Didymus, are 
names of pagan deities ; and, what is still more fatal to the pre- 
tence of a distinction between Christianity and paganism, those 
deities bear precisely the same character and part in the pagan 
mythology as in the Christian gospel. One of the most distin- 
guished surnames of the God Apollo, was Didymus, that name 
signifying a Twin : and Apollo was called Apollo Didymaeus, as 
dispenser of the twin light, or light by both day and night. 

The month of May is subscribed, in the calendar of Julius Cae- 
sar, ^^ under the protection of Apollo,'''' as every one knows, that 
the Twins, Gemini, is, to this day, the name of the third of the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac, reckoning Aries the first — that is, 
the fifth, reckoning Aquarius, the Water-bearer, the first. The 
Sun, entering Gemini on the 19th of May, quits it for Cancer^ 
the sign immediately following, on the 20th of June. Now the 
Hebrew name for the month of June happens to be none other 
than the direct basis of this word Thomas (Thamuz) : and thus 
Didymus — z. e., the Twin, is not an interpretation of the name 
Thomas, but a surname added to it : Didymus expressing the 
thirteen days which the Sun of Gemini, the Twins, takes out of 
the month of May, and Thomas, the remaining nineteen out of 
the month of June— the whole, Didymus Thomas, or Thomas- 



THE devil's pulpit. 185 

a-Didymus, exactly defining xhe relations of this sign of the 
Zodiac. 

As Didymseus, or Didymus, was a synonymous name of the 
Grecian Apollo, so Thomas was the perfect synonyme of the 
Phoenician Adonis. As each name, traced to its primitive roots, 
most clearly demonstrates — ad, the Lord; on, the Being; is, 
the Fire — that is, the Lord : the one, the fire — that is, the Sun. 

In the Pagan fable, believed to be the Son of the Virgin Myr- 
rha, by her own father, Cinyras. 

In the Christian fable, believed to be the Son of the Virgin 
Mary, by her own God. 

Worshipped, by the demi-humanized orang-outangs, whom 
we call Jews, to this day, under the name oi Adonai,* which 
they always substitute in the place of the name Yahouy which 
we pronounce Jehovah. 

Worshipped by the savage hordes, from whom the Jews be- 
lieve themselves to be descended, under the name of Tammuz,^ 
from the days of an infinitely remote antiquity. 

The name Thomas being compounded of the two Ammonian 
primitives, Thorn, Wonderful, whence the Greeks formed their 
word Bavixa, a miracle, sign, or wonder ; and ^^,Jire : the whole 
together literally expressing. '' the wonderful fire'^ — that is, the 
Sun. The name hell, or hell-fire, is directly formed from the 
Hebrew "?« , Eel, God ; whence the Greeks^ formed their name 

* Adonai is, literally, my Lords, in the plural ; Adoni is, my Lord, in 
the singular : Adonis, the Lord, ike Being, the Fire — i. e., the Sun, in 
the full nominative case singular. 

t Tammuz, abstruse, concealed. — Cruden. 

X And the name of hell, or hell-fire, is but another reading of the 
name Thomas, that is, the wonderful fire ; whence the universal asso- 
ciation of the names Hell and Tommy. They are perfectly synony- 
mous, "?«, Heel, the Hebrew name of God, forming the basis of HXto^, the 
Greek name of the sun, and passing over by metonomy to the name 
of the fish called the eel, or water-snake, which, by putting its tail 
into its mouth, was the universal emblem of the eternity of the sun ; 
by its remarkable tenacity of life, was the emblem, of the immortality 
of the sun; by its possession of its energies, without any limb or di- 



186 THE devil's pulpit. 

of the sun, Heelios ; and the Hebrews took back again wha 
they had lent in their name of the prophet, who went up in his 
fiery chariot, Elias. 

Nor is there any truth in which the learned are more entirely 
agreed, than that Tammuz and Adonis are one and the self-same 
deity — that is, synonymous names of the same deity ; namely, 
the sun in the inonth of June, of which Milton so beautifully 
sings, in his first book of Paradise Lost ; — 
" Thammuz came next behind, 

Whose annual wound in Lebanon, allured 

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, 

In amorous ditties all-a summer's day; 

While smooth Adonis, from his native rock, 

Ran purple to the sea — supposed with blood 

Of Thammuz, yearly wounded : the love-tale 

Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, 

W^hose wanton passions in the sacred porch 

Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led, 

His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries 

Of alienated Judah.^' 
That love-tale, which the Syrian damsels sung "in amorous 
ditties, all a summer's day," was none other than that self-same 

vision of its body, the emblem of him who peculiarly hath life in him- 
self; and by its silent orbicular progress, the emblem of the sun's 
apparent motion in the Zodiac, and of the whole solar system together, 
through infinite space. And by analogy, transferred to the heely as the 
lower part of the human body, in the microcosm of man : as the point 
of Hell and Tommy in the Zodiac, is the sun's lowest place of declina- 
tion, on the 21st of December. And here breaks in upon us the light 
of a significancy and a meaning, where otherwise I defy the wit of 
man to find any meaning at all, of those words in the 49th psalm : 
^' Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my 
heels compasseth me round about.'' In the name of God, now, what 
sort of iniquity is it that a man could commit with his heels ? Or how 
could the iniquity of his heels compass him about ? Morally, the thing 
is an absurdity ; historically, it is an impossibility ; but, astronomical- 
ly, " the days of evil" are the short days of deep winter, and then it 
is that the heels of the sun, in his annual walk, stick fast in the deep 



THE devil's pulpit. 187 

tale, which we now caJl gospel, and which was denounced as 
the grossest idolatry by the Jewish God, 594 years before it ac- 
quired the name of Christianity. It was the tale of the suffer- 
ing Savior, the crucified God, Poor Tommy, denounced as an 
execrable abomination, though carried on as religious worship, 
even in the temple of Jehovah himself; as you read in the 8th 
of Ezekiel, ver. 14 : " Then he brought me to the door of the 
Lordh house, which was toward the north, and hehold there sat 
women weeping for Tammuz''^ (Thomas). The Latin Vulgate has 
given us the name of Adonis, as a direct translation of the word 
Thomas, *^ Et ecce ibi mulieres sedebant, plangentes Adonidem,^^ 

The Greek of the Septuagint has it, Kat tJ» ekci ywaUsg 
KaOrjuevai OpTjvyaai tov QajAixov^. And the Hebrew text is, 
pDnn riN no:3a niotri Diorjn Dtr nsni 

That the tale or story of Poor Tom, or Tommy, or Thomas, or 
Adonis, was the same as the story of Jesus Christ, I have shown 
most fully in my work on the origin and history of the Christian 
religion, entitled the Diegests : to which I can only refer the 
more curious inquirer, resting here, on the pretty sufficient evi- 
dence, 

1st. That the names are in some instances, the very same. 

2d. The significancy or meaning of the names is, in every in- 
stance, the same. 

3d. The doctrines are the very same. 

4th. The forms and words of worship are the very same. 

And if, with so much evidence of sameness between the an- 
cient paganism and the modern paganism, which is now called 
Christianity, there ever was a real substantive and essential dif- 
ference, the man is yet unborn whose wit or whose learning 
could point out, in what that difference consisted. 

mire and clay ; as fast as he gets one heel out, the other sticks in 
again. He is retarded in his progress, and the unevenness at turning 
the curve seems completely to compass him about. And that this sort 
of language was astronomical, is announced in the verse immediately 
preceding, in which the speaker calls what he was going to say, a 
problem, in the Greek ; a proposition, in the Latin ; a dark saying, in 
the English ; and, as the common sense of it means, a riddle. 



188 THE devil's PCJLriT. 

The name Thomas^ which is but a varied utterance of Tam- 
muz (as hardly any two men of two countries would utter the 
same word in the same way) the Hebrew name of the month of 
JunCf signifies, as you will see in your concordance, in the whole 
word Tammuz, the abstruse, the hidden, or concealed. 

So, the name Ammon — that is, the Amen, one of the names of 
Jesus Christ, in the gospel, is always brought in at the end of our 
Christian prayers, as the explanation and meaning of the name 
Jesus Christ, '* Through Jesus Christ, our Lord Ammon^' — that 
is, Jesus Christ who is our Lord Ammon, or Jupiter Ammon. 
Ammon, in the whole word, always signified the abstruse, the 
hidden, or concealed one.^ 

As we find the prophet Isaiah, addressing him with this pret- 
ty compliment, ^* Verily, thou art a God that hidesi thyself, ^^ 
Isaiah xlv. 15. *' God of Israel the Savior. '^^ The Sun, which 
is Adonis, Thomas, Jupiter, Ammon, and Osiris, is said to hide 
itself at the winter solstice : and hence, in Egypt, the annual re- 
ligious ceremony of seeking for Osiris, and the innumerable ex- 
pressions which run through our whole Christian theology, 
which is entirely derived from Egypt, about seeking the Lord, 

Ammon was worshipped, not only as the Sun, at its highest 
altitude in the ecliptic, but as at the directly opposite point, the 
lowest — that is, not only as the Sun in all his glory, " lifting up 
the light of his countenance upon us ;" but as the Stygian Jupi- 
ter, in deep winter, hiding himself from us. 

And thus, while Thomas is literally the name of the month 
of June, yet Thomas's-day, or the day in which Thomas is to be 
particularly worshipped, is the 21st of December. 

On which day, the church returns thanks to God for the un- 
belief of his holy apostle Thomas. Of which allegorical unbe- 
lief, the physical interpretation is so clear and so beautiful, that 
one hardly knows whether more to admire the want of all poe- 
try of soul, or of all common sense, in the bungling dunces, that 
could dream of anything else than an allegory having been in- 

* Accc/ding to Manetho, as we learn from Plutarch, Aramon signi- 
fies TO K€Kpvn[j.evov, Kai, mv KpvipiVj occultum et occuUalionem. — Sik W, 
Driimmond's Originesy vol, ii., p. 332. 



THE devil's pulpit. 189 

tenaed by it. The sun is at his lowest point of declination on 
the 21st of December, and for about four days before and four 
days after. St. Thomas's day, therefore, the 21st — that is, the 
middle day of the winter solstice, is fixed on as the shortest day. 
And St. Thomas, therefore, as the genius of that day, is in alle- 
gorical despair, as to whether his master, the Sun, will ever rise 
again. But, on the 25th of December, which is Christmas-day^ 
four days after St. ThomasVday, it is evident that the sun actu- 
ally has risen, the day is lengthened, the sun has achieved his 
first degree in the ascending scale : and hence, in one manner 
of arranging the allegory — that is, the day of the hirth of Christ ; 
in another it is the day of his second hirth, or resurrection ; and 
in a third, it is the day of the resurrection of Lazarus — that is, 
of the year, the friend of Christ, which had been exactly /ewr 
days dead. 

It is on the 25th of December that the Genii, or personifica- 
tions of the other days and months of the year, say, in exact al- 
legory, to Thomas, ** We have seen the Lord,'''' and receive from 
him that churlish avowal of his unbelief: 

Don't talk to me about seeing the sun ! My fingers are frost' 
bitten still, a7id till I can thaw them in his vital heat, and put 
my hand upon some substance that has been made warm by his 
recovered ray — the absolute print of his hand upon nature — / 
will not believe. 

This absolute increase of the sun's vital heat, becomes une- 
quivocally perceptible, about eight days afterward. Thomas, 
therefore, receives the satisfaction he had demanded, and from 
that day, which is the 1st of January, and not before, the length- 
ening of the day, and the perceptible increase of the sun's iieat, 
having done away with the doubts of St. Thomas, the new year 
is reckoned to begin. 

But there will still be, to the unskilled in this occult science, 
a constant appearance of confusion and jumbling, and a conse- 
quent suspicion of a total want of system and method, as if one 
could make anything of it one pleased, and it were all mere con- 
jecture, as I can put any one apostle in the place of any other, 
as it seems to serve the turn ; and I am constantly confounding 



190 THE devil's fclpit. 

the disciple with his Lord, and the Lord with the disciple, and 
one disciple Avith another; and ascribing to one and the same 
disciple the most opposite and contradictory characteristics. 

The answer is, the multiplication table is just such another 
jumble and piece of confusion, to a fool ; but if you will be at 
the pains to evolve the inductions or repeated additions which 
constitute the multiplications, you will learn that the appearance 
of confusion originated in your own ignorance, and that, in reali- 
ty, there is no jumble or confusion at all in it. 

Only serve the multiplication-table as you serve the gospel, 
by taking it for what it was never meant for, and refusing to 
understand it any otherwise than as you did the first day it was 
put into your hands, and you will acquire about as much skill in 
arithmetic as your clergy have in divinity. But all the difficulty 
and apparent contradiction will vanish, if you will but recollect 
and apply the universal metonomy both of human language and 
of human idea: whereby, a thing is held to be sufficiently ex- 
pressed, when anything which has an immediate connexion and 
relation with it, is expressed — as we say, make the kettle hotly 
for make the water boil, and shut the door, for shut the door- 
way. So, the sign in which the sun is, is at any time identified 
with the sun. And the sun of every year, of every month, and 
of every day, is spoken of, in allegorical astronomy, as a distinct 
and particular sun ; while yet, there never is, nor was, but one 
and the self-same sun. Thus the Bii Majores, or greater Gods, 
of the pagan mythology, were but one and the same God — that 
is, the same sun, as distinctively considered in the twelve months 
of the year, as the three Gods or three persons in one God, in 
the Christian Trinity, are in like manner but one and the self- 
same God — that is, the productive energy of nature, as consid- 
ered in the three elements of Fire, Water, and Air, which are 
the original and only Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, " which was 
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,'' 
Ammon. 

Thus the Amen of the gospel, in the mystical prayer, of the 
17th of John, prays, that " all his disciples may be turned into 
one ; and that he may be in them, and they in him, and he in 



THE devil's pulpit. I9l 

God ; that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I 
in thee, I in them, and thou in me :" so that, instead of leaving 
the reckoning to stand as only three persons in one God, it must, 
by an arithmetic, make fourteen persons in one God. ** That 
they all may he one,'^'' says Christ — and so say I too. For if three 
persons, each by himself being God and Lord, may yet make 
but one God and one Lord ; what is to hinder, but that fourteen, 
or any other number of Gods and Lords, may be but one? For 
when once a man renounces his reason, as every good Christian 
is bound to do — sure enough it's all one to him. 

The solution of the enigma, however, as an allegory of the 
natural phenomena of the same one eternal and unchanging 
sun, through all the changing seasons of the year, is so clear, so 
beautiful, so obvious, that it is impossible not to see that it has been 
only by effort, and pains-taking, tliat men have shut themselves 
out from conviction, and barricaded themselves in ignorance, by 
pretending an historical character for what an unsophisticated 
child would see, could never have been intended but as a fiction. 
In which case, one can not but apply to them the censure which 
the gospel itself denounces : ** They love darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds are eviV — that is, they hide themselves 
from the clear and evident allegorical sense of their scriptures, 
and have pretended an historical one, because they have a wick- 
ed and sinistrous purpose of their own to serve ; because they 
have a craft to carry on ; because they would usurp a tyrannous 
and cruel influence over weak minds, that see not through their 
craft ; and because honor, wealth, and power, are acquirable in 
this way, with less talent, exertion, or industy, than any other. 

The belief, which the gospel requires, was never the belief 
which implied a taking it to be true, but that only which im- 
plies, what in a vulgar, but very expressive phrase, is called the 
being up to 27— that is, indeed, the not taking it to be true, but 
taking it as it was intended, and as it is, indeed, a fiction, a ro- 
mance, an allegorical veil thrown over natural history. 

And as one series of natural phenomena might be more in 
the mind of the allegorist than another, or a more or less inge- 
nious way of allegorizing the same facts would occur to the more 



192 THE devil's pulpit. 

or less ingenious alJegorists, you have that brave neglect of 
method, that heedlessness of consistency with itself, or with any 
other allegory of the same phenomena, which characterizes St. 
Joha's allegory, as distinguished from the allegories of Mat- 
thew, Mark, and Luke. 

So the character of Thomas, a pure invention of the fourth 
allegorist, like the allegorical miracle of turning water into 
wine, and the resurrection of Lazarus, never occurred to the 
minds of Matthew, Mark, and Luke — as the allegorical miracle 
of the Devil's drowning the pigs, or the pigs drowning the 
devils, which cuts such a pretty figure in Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, is wholly omitted by St. John. To say nothing of the 
total contrariety, and different ways of telling the fable of the 
resurrection of Christ, in John's gospel, and the three others ; a 
contrariety and difference which Christian critics themselves 
are constrained to admit can not be reconciled on any supposi- 
tion of an historical basis of the story, but allowable enough 
under the license of allegory and fiction, from which a perfect 
consistency is never expected. It being enough that the story 
hangs together any way in which it may hang together, and that 
the reader be sufficiently aware of the moral or latent astronomi- 
cal significancy which the story is constructed to convey — 
" Errors, like straws^ upon the surface flow : 
He who would seek for pearls, must dive below. ^^ 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON SAINT THOMAS. 



THE DEYIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT JS."— Allan Cunningham. 

SAINT JAMES AND SAINT JOHN, 

THE SONS OF THUNDER: 

A SERMON, 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A., 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, MARCH 20, 1831. 



*^ And after six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and 
John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain, apart by them- 
selves : and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment be- 
came shining, exceeding white, as snow : so as no fuller on earth can 
white them,'' — Mark ix., 2, 3. 



I HAVE before preached, and have published the discourse I 
preached, on this fable of the Transfiguration of Christ, as it is 
called — the Metamorphosis, as it ought to be called. For it is 
of the same nature as Ovid's Metamorphoses. The word ren- 
dered he was transfigured mre^opipwdr]^ in both Matthew's and 
Luke's gospel, is, as your own ear will admonish you, most lit- 
erally — he was metamorphosed — that is, he was metamorphosed 
into the sun: and the drollery of it is, that his coat, waistcoat, 
and breeches, and his shoes and stockings, if he had any, were 
metamorphosed to ; they also partook of the divine beatifica- 
tion, which is a clear proof that the clothes we wear are as 
capable of immortality as ourselves : and when we rise again 
13 



X94 THE devil's pulpit. 

in glorified bodies, we shall rise at the same time in glorified 
apparel, to cover our glorified bodies: as St. Paul says, *'Not 
that we would be unclothed;" God forbid! **but that we 
would be clothed upon." There will be nobody at the mar- 
riage-supper of ihe lamb but who will have the decency to ap- 
pear in some sort of a wedding garment. 

After all, then, it is really no such impiety as they would fain 
pretend that it is, to say that the gospel is altogether a bag of 
moonshine. For, if this part of the gospel be literally true 
and I am sure it is as true as any part of the gospel, it is evi- 
dent that Jesus Christ, as he stood upon that mount of transfig- 
uration, or, as it is sometimes called, the Holy Mount, was 
nothing more than a bag of sunshine. 

Eyej/£:ro, to eicos rn npo(TCx)-8 avry^ erepov, is the Greek of the teXt 

of Luke's version of this metamorphosis — his face was turned 
into another ; or, if we prefer the Greek of the Syrio- Armenia 
Codices of Cambridge, it is riXXoKoOr], which would signify that 
he was sunnifiedy or turned into the sun. 

My discourse on this subject, is published in the fourth vol- 
ume of the Lion, and is in the twenty-fourth number of that 
volume. To that, I refer the more curious inquirer, as it is not 
now my intention to treat of the miracle of the transfiguration. 
The narrative has only come in my way, as bringing together 
the names of two of the disciples, James and John; who, with 
Peter, were admitted to the exclusive privilege of being intro- 
duced into this Camera-lucid a. To which the Peter of the 
epistle is made to refer, as the most positive evidence that 
could be adduced for the truth of the Christian religion, in 
those words: ^^ For ice have not followed cunningly- devised 
fables, when we made known unto you, the power and coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, hut were eye-witnesses of his Majes- 
ty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, 
when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, 
* This is my beloved Son, in ivhom I am well pleased,^ And this 
voice which came from Heaven we heard, when we were with him 
in the Holy Mount.''— 2 Peter, i., 16-18. 

I have only now to remark, in passing, on this miracle of the 



THE devil's pulpit. 195 

transfiguration of Christ, that it is one among ten thousand 
proofs, of the absolute truth and fidelity of the noble science to 
which I have so long directed your researches. It supplies a 
ready answer to those who would revile me as the most absurd 
of men, for representing Jesus Christ as being nothing more 
than the Sun that — " that is, precisely as he represented him- 
self''' So that, I may boldly say, the gospel has not, and never 
had, so faithful a preacher as the person whom his enemies 
have entitled the Devil's Chaplain. 

The story of the metamorphosis of Christ, and of the part 
which Peter, James, and John, bear in it, as called cTroTrrat, 
sophistically translated, ** Eye-witnesses of his Majesty,'^'* can 
only pass for a part and parcel of a system, taking date subse- 
quently to the reign of the emperor Augustus ; on that stupid 
ignorance that would believe anything, and that stupid igno- 
rance fortified by the maliciousness of a bad heart, which pur- 
posely bars off all access of better information, and strikes away 
the light of knowledge, lest it should shine into the unswept 
chambers of a fool's understanding. 

The whole aflfair is an uncovered, unconcealed exhibition of 
the most ancient ceremony or sacrament of the Eleusinian mys- 
teries : the same in all essentialities of sameness, whether as 
celebrated in Egypt or Greece, to the honor of the Egyptian 
Isis, or the Grecian Ceres : in which, those of the initiated 
who were advanced to the highest degree, that was, to see the 
ultimate scope and end of those mysteries, to whom *• it wah 
given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven,"^' were 
called X]ie perfect rsXeiot; and, from the sight which had been 
afforded them, the eiroTrTai, or Seers, or avroTrrai — that is, eye-wit- 
nesses. As the sight itself was called the Autopsy — that is, 
the sight itself: and the showing of the sight, the Photagogy, 
or bringing in of light. 

Hence, St. Luke, in his preface, can give no higher authority 
to his gospel, than calling it a Diegesis of things which had 
been told them by those who had been Autops and Upereets of 
the science: which our deceitful translation renders, ''Eye-wit' 
nesses and ministers of the word ;^^ he himself being one of the 



196 THE devil's pulpit. 

initiated, but not advanced to the higher degree of an Autop, 
or noble- grand, or royal arch, in this Freemasonry mystery. 
The secret was to be kept most profound, as you find the mas- 
ter, when he came down from the Mount of Vision, straightly 
charged the Autops, or favored disciples, that they should tell 
no man. The initiated, who had passed through all the inferior 
grades, and attained the high rank of Autops, or eye-witnesses, 
were called by the whole pagan world, Israelites and Hebrews, 
The name of Israelites, Jews, or Hebrews, did never designate 
a political or national body, but were the name, which, from 
an infinitely remote antiquity, designated the reXuoi^ the Upe- 
reets, the Autops, the Rechabites, the Fanatics, the Frantics, the 
Lunatics, or whatever other tics and bites might be used, to 
signify the highest order of the initiated in ihose holy myste- 
ries ; and to whom, and to whom alone, were committed the 
oracles of G-od. As the name Jew, or Jeue, is the identical 
name which we pronounce Jehovah, and is a name given to the 
worshippers of Jeue, not from their country, but from their God : 
and hence Jesus Christ was said to be a Jew — i, e., a God, 

As their great ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, translates 
the name Hebrew, and correctly (^nzjyr: rr[2n) translates it, one 
who has passed over, and says that it was given to those 
*' whose religious philosophy had burst through the limits of 
the visible world, and passed into the bosom of intellectuality, 
and into that divine light, where are invisible and hidden 
essences."* 

The Autopsy or Transfiguration of Christ, then, though alle- 
gorically indicating the bright shining of the sun upon the alle- 
gorical Genii of July and August, takes its narrative form, and 
its dialogue, as does the whole fable of the crucifixion and 
resurrection of Christ, from words actually used, and incidents 
actually represented, with more or less aptness, as it might be, 
by the real Hierophant and his disciples, who performed their 
respective parts in the mystical pantomime which we now call 
gospel ; but which Hierophant and his disciples were no more 
the persons that they represented, than our players of the pres- 
* Dupuis, vol. ii., part ii., p. 239. 



THE devil's pulpit. 197 

ent day, are the gods, and devils, and fiends, and ghosts, which 
a fool might imagine them to be. 

Out of the whole glorious (that is to say, clarions, or shining) 
company of the apostles, we have found the places, relations, 
and phenomena in the great solar system, of those distinguished 
personifications, Peter, Judas, and Thomas.* 

It is the Autops, James and John, who, with Peter, were fa- 
vored with this privilege of the autopsy, with whom we are 
now to become acquainted ; and that is more than any Chris- 
tian on earth dare trust himself to do. Inquiry and knowledge, 
in all cases, being fatal to faith. Well, Mr. James, and John, 
why were you, and Saint Peter, fixed upon to be the only Au- 
tops, i, e., witnesses of the metamorphosis of Christ, upon the 
Sunshiny Mount ? Why didn't ye take Thomas with you — our 
friend Tommy, the unbelieving, honest-hearted Tom, the only 
sensible man among ye, if men, or anything like men, ye had 
been ? The clergy, ye see, in all ages, and all relations, were 
well aware, that the apostle of infidelity would take the shine 
out of 'em. 

We first hear of James and John, in the 4th of Matthew, 
where they are found by Jesus on the sea of Galilee, and are 
called two brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his 
brother, who were in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mend- 
ing their nets: and Jesus called them, and they immediately 
left the ship, and their father, and followed him. 

Thus commencing their apostleship with an act of the gross- 
est filial disobedience and ingratitude, leaving their poor old 
father Zebedee to mend his nets himself, and to get his ship to 
land, the devil might care how, while they ran strolling up and 
down the country after a person, who, for all that appears in 
the history, if a history it had been, was nothing more than a 
mountebank quack doctor, who pretended to have dealings with 
the deviU and to cure all manner of diseases. 

Bui, not for a moment must we lose sight of the curiously- 
dropped stitch in the weaving of the story, that these two broth- 

* The whole apostolic company will be treated of, in due succes- 
sion, in this science. 



198 THE devil's pulpit. 

ers, James and John, were called to be disciples of Christ im- 
mediately after the calling of two other brothers, Simon, called 
Peter, and Andrew his brother ; and that, by the same sea of 
Galilee, and from the same avocation, running after the fishes. 

So, here were two brace of brother-fishermen — the brothers 
Peter and Andrew, who, as Peter was called Simon Peter, and 
Simon Bar-Jona, were the sons of Jonah ; and the brothers 
James and John, the declared sons of Zebedee : — which James 
and John, notwithstanding their being expressly called the sons 
of Zebedee, receive from Christ himself the surname of Boaner- 
ges, which is, the sons of thunder. Mark iii., 17. 

So ! so ! the sons of thunder, then ? Was the old man Zebe* 
dee the thunderer? What became of Zebedee, old Zebedee? 
His disobedient sons might leave him in his ship, mending his 
rotten nets, and there an end of him. So will not we ! 

If James and John acquired the name of Boanerges, which 
is, sons of thunder, what did the name of Zebedee, their father, 
signify ? Its literal translation is, abundant portion. 

Now, in a figurative sense, there is quite as perspicuous a sig- 
nificancy in the sons of abundance, as in the sons of thunder. 

If, then, a literal sense can not be pretended for such a phrase 
as, the sons of thunder, which is Boanerges, neither can it be 
pretended for the sons of abundance, which is, the sons of Zeb- 
edee. And the sons of abundance, being thus identified with 
the sons of thunder : — this James and John, who are the sons 
of thunder and the sons of abundance — that is, the sons of Zebe- 
dee, can be no more real persons, than abundance and thunder 
are real persons. 

Now the church, for a reason which no churchman can give 
you, and I can, fixes the festival of Saint James on the 25th of 
July, which is a month remarkable for the frequent occurrence 
of thunder, and of thunder-storms, as the month of August is as 
remarkable, as being the harvest month, or the month of abun- 
dance. On the 25th of July the sun enters the sign of the Lion 
of July : but not before the 6th of August is the sun fairly in the 
middle of the Lion. On that day, then, is fixed the festival of 
the Transfiguration : the face of Christ then becomes another, 



THE devil's pulpit. 199 

and the Lamb of God is transfigured into the Lion of the tribe 
of Judah. 

Now be awake again, I beseech ye ! The names of James 
and John, these sons of abundance, these sons of thunder, these 
apostolic brothers, privileged above all the rest to bask in the 
effulgence of Christ's glory upon the holy mount, are names 
which always come together, and always in this order, James 
and John — never as John and James, which would be blasphe- 
mous, and would as surely raise the devil, as if you were to 
say the Lord's prayer backward. It would be as preposterous 
as if you were to reckon August as coming before July. 

Nor is James, though distinguished by the title of James the 
Great, ever mentioned as concerned in any action, as making 
any speech ; as speaking, or as spoken of, so much as in one 
single instance, separately and distinctively from his brother 
John. 

And as there can be no thunder without lighming in the order 
of nature, so we find that the characters and actions of these 
thunderers in the gospel, are as allegorical as their names. 

For the sons of thunder, James and John, it is, who, of all the 
apostolic band, were the only two who ask of Jesus Christ for 
leave to call for fire from heaven ; when some apparent inter- 
ruption in his course had occurred, and James and John ob- 
served it, they said, ** Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to 
come down from Heaven, and consume them, even as Elias 
did ?" But he turned (what did he turn for ?) and rebuked 
them. On which beautiful fable of the Sun, holding the thun- 
der and lightning of July and August in check, in order to pre- 
serve the harvest from their blasting influence, has been at- 
tached, the noblest and the best moral that any fable ever had. 

Only, unhappily, our gospellers have served the gospel as 
they serve all other fables. The moral of it was always that 
part which they never wished lo see, nor cared to practise. 

In the keepings of an historical congruity, it should have 
been Simon the zealot, or the rash and hasty Simon Peter. It 
should have been the infidel Thomas, or the traitor Judas, 
whose dispositions should have appeared in the desire to call 



200 THE devil's pulpit. 

for fire from Heaven, or any of the twelve, rather than James 
the Great, whose character is not drawn at all ; and John, the 
disciple whom Jesus loved, whose character, so far as it is 
drawn, was the most opposite of all the twelve, to that of such 
a disposition. 

It is evidently, then, not an historical consistency, but a physi- 
cal one, that the gospel allegory respects. In which consisten- 
cy, it is seen at once, that though the months of July and August 
are, in ihe course of nature, most ordinarily beneficent and ami- 
able to man, yet they are often found to be the sons of thunder, 
and, from their great heat of temper, frequently accompanied 
with the most dreadful storms of lightning. 

Of the ihunderer, James, not one single act which he ever 
did, not one word which he ever spoke, nor one syllable that 
he ever wrote, exists, or can be shown ever to have been in ex- 
istence in any record whatever. The epistle called the General 
Epistle of James, in the New Testament, claims to be no more 
than an epistle of " Jamesy a Servant of God, and of the Lord 
Jesus Christ;^'' and is evidently the composition of a Roman 
Catholic priest, contrived to inculcate their very lucrative doc- 
trines of auricular confession, and extreme unction : and as such, 
is rejected as a most palpable cheat and imposture, by the 
shrewder and more intelligent, even of those who have pro- 
fessed and called themselves Christians. And those who will 
have that epistle to be apostolical, ascribe it to James the Less, 
and not to James of whom we now treat, the son of thunder. 

The learned Unitarian divine, the Rev. Edward Evanson, in 
his celebrated work, the Dissonanccy &c., has settled all preten- 
sions of the epistle-writing James, p. 276. 

Neither is there any historical identification of the James the 
brother of John, of the gospels, with the James, the brother of 
John, of the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 12, where it is said 
that Herod the King (our old friend, you know, Herod the 
King, that cruel child-killer, who is always brought on the 
stage when there is any bloody scene to act) ''stretched forth 
hands to vex certain of the churchy ard he killed James, the 
brother of John^ with the sword^ 



THE devil's pulpit. 201 

Now, what matters to us what instrument it was that he 
killed him with ? It matters everything: for it is not said that 
he killed him with a sword, but he killed him with the sword, 
ixuKaipa, a very particular sort of a sword that must be, to be wor- 
thy to be so particularly mentioned. Let's hope it might be a 
sort of a sword that would not shed much blood : since, other- 
wise, it would be hard to account for a miracle being wrought 
to get Peter out of this Herod's clutches, while poor Jemmy 
was lefl^to be his victim. For the story runs, that Herod the 
king, having killed James with the sword, proceeded further, 
to take Peter also ; and when he had apprehended him, he put 
him in prison, eig ^v\aKr]v, <* and delivered him to four quarterni^ 
ons of soldiers to keep him, intending, after Easter, to bring 
him forth to the people J^'^ 

So, so, so ! and we are to read this holy jargon so, with our 
eyes shut, and with such a perfect innocence of criticism, as to 
see nothing absurd or contradictory, or preposterous, in this 
murderous King Herod, being so punctiliously conscientious, as 
not to allow any public performances to go on during the Pas- 
sion Week. Jjike a good Christian, as he was, he will wait 
till after Easter. An unlucky translation that, of the i^^ra to raaxa^ 
which might have been rendered after the passover : except 
that the rendering after the passover, is hardly thick enough 
to cover from the prying eyes of honest skepticism the latent 
astronomical conundrum, that this King Herod, having killed 
James with the sword, must proceed further to take Peter, and 
finds a pass-over, or something, some line, some bridge, some 
anything you please, that must be passed over, ere he can serve 
Peter as he had served James. 

The first thing, however, that Peter does, upon finding him- 
self escaped from the power of Herod, is to send word, to James 
especially, of his miraculous escape ; which obliges us to rec- 
ollect that there is another James in the apostleship, and that 
is James the Less, who, though he is expressly called the son 
of Alphaeus, which signifies a thousand, learned, or chief, has 
the distinguishing epithet of the Brother of Jesus Christ, and 
the still more distinguishing epithet of James the Just, which 



202 THE devil's pulpit. 



epithet sufficiently serves to fix his place in the Scales of Sep- 
tember. 

But of the James, the brother of John, the James and John, 
the sons of thunder, to v^hom now we confine our studies : their 
identity with the imaginary genii of the months of July and 
August, which are the thundering months, is still further estab- 
lished by the allegorical analogy of their being the object of 
envy to all the other apostles : as July and August are the 
months in which the Sun puts forth his greatest splendor, and 
more especially crowns the year wiih his goodness : .so that 
July and August are, by the most obvious figure, the sons of 
Zebedee — that is, the sons of abundance. But of all the apos- 
tolic cohort, James and John happen to be the only two that 
had a mother, or a mother that cared for them, that had their 
interest at heart, and whose character was worthy to be wrought 
into the texture of the allegorical drama. As in Matthew xx., 
20, you have introduced the character of the mother of Zebedee^s 
children — Mrs. Zebedee come to Jesus, upon a boroughmonger- 
ing errand, to get good places under government, for her two 
sons. *' Worshipping him,^^ says the textj ^^ and desiring a cer- 
tain thing of him.'''' A carneying old woman she was. She 
worshipped him — not that she cared for him any more than he 
for her : only she was up to the way of things at court, and 
knew that places under gov-ernment are only to be got by the 
trick of appearing to be vastly religious, and laying on the wor- 
shippingy pretty thick. So, after he had enough of her wor- 
shipping (as, like the rest of 'em, she'd have worshipped the 
devil, had he happened to be in office), he said unto her, **What 
wilt thou ?" She saith unto him, " Grant that these my two 
sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy 
left, in thy kingdom !" You see they were mere sinecure pla- 
ces which the woman wanted — nothing to do in 'em but to sit 
still and enjoy themselves at the expense of the kingdom. 

There were, however, two qualifications necessary for the 
places they desired, as to which, their sufficient accomplish- 
ment might be doubted : those qualifications were, drinking 
and ducking, '^ Are ye able to drink ?" said Jesus (and to make 



1 



THE devil's pulpit. 203 

a good splash in the world, that is no ordinary drink, be sure 
on't), **but to drink of the cup which I shall drink of:" to toss 
it off, I dare say, at a swig, without stopping to take breath. 
To which these sons of thunder, answer very promptly, " We 
are ahle,^^ And the devil doubt 'em ! the hot months of July 
and August naturally disposing men to be thirsty and feverish : 
the personified genius of either of those months, appears in the 
hieroglyphical picture as a complete 

" Toby Fill pot, a thirsty old soul. 
As ere cracked a bottle, or fathomed a bowl." 

But that cup, now ? that particular cup ! season but your 
admiration with so much patience, as shall put it into my power 
to serve you up that cup in the due order of this intellectual 
banquet ; aud I do promise you in one of these discourses, that 
you shall drink out of that cup, the nectar of the gods, so rich 
a draught of science, and of scientific demonstration, as shall 
destroy in you for ever all possibility of swallowing any more 
of the milk and water of the gospel. 

But our business now, is with the sons of Zebedee, and their 
mother, Mrs. Zebedee. There is not a little difficulty in iden- 
tifying this old woman, owing to her being spoken of by no 
other epithet than that most evidently enigmatical one, the 
mother of Zehedee^s children — which should seem to indicate 
that though she was the mother of Zebedee's children, she 
never had the honor of being Zebedee's wife. The ladies and 
gentlemen of the gospel, seem not to have been anything like so 
ceremonious about these things, as we are now-a-days. Because 
the gospel is the purest system of morals that ever was in the 
world— and where will you find anything to compare with the 
morals of the gospel ? 

There are two Johns, two Jameses, two Judases, two Simons, 
and four Marys, in thd dramatis personcB of the gospel. So 
that, though we have the expression, Mary, the mother of 
James, and Mary, the mother of John: it must rest only in 
conjecture, which of the Marys was the mother of the sons of 
Zebedee. Unless we please to relieve our conjecture, by acting 
^aith on God's word, and so conclude, that as there are three 



204 THE devil's pulpit. 

persons in one God, so there might be four mothers where there 
was but one woman. 

But this sublime confusion is, for the better exercise of our 
faith, most sublimely enhanced, by the discovery which results 
from a comparison of the text of Matthew's gospel with that 
of Mark's, which shows us, that as Christ could truly say, " I 
and my Father are one :" so his disciples, James and John, 
could as truly say, we and our mother are one. 

What, in Matthew's gospel, is reported as having been spo- 
ken by the mother, is, in Mark's, said to have been spoken by her 
sons ; and no mention at all is made of Mrs. Zebedee in the 
affair. It being evidently all one and the same thing, whether 
it were they who said it, or she — that is, whether the applica- 
tion to be allowed to sit, the one on Jesus's right hand, and the 
other on his left, were made immediately by themselves, or by 
their mother, who represented them. Because, as it is the 
Virgin of the Zodiac, who represents the genii of those sons of 
ahundancey July and August — that is James and John. 

It never being to be forgotten, that in allegorical adaptation, 
those congruities and consistencies which we look for in histo- 
ries and narratives, are not required. The contradictions, ab- 
surdities, and jarring statements, which are not to be excused, 
nor endured, in anything that would pass for history, become 
the source of greater entertainment, and the vehicle of further 
instruction, in mythology. And these contradictions, absurdi- 
ties, and impossibilities, which are found in every page of sacred 
writ, are themselves the evidence and demonstration that it was 
not history, but mythology, that was intended. 

The folly is, that of the fool himself, who takes the gospel to 
be true, which never itself purported, nor was intended to pass 
for truth ; and then looks for consistency and method, where 
nothing but pantomime and fiction was intended. 

The believer of the gospel, therefore, is not he who takes it 
to be true, but he who takes it as it was intended to be taken — 
that is who understands it, who sees through or looks under 
the gross veil of the letter, into the sublime science of the 
spirit : in which sense, no pretended minister of the gospel in 



THE devil's pulpit. 206 

in this accursedly priest-ridden country, dare trust himself, or 
hiS congregation, to accept the challenge I have given, to show 
whether it be I, or he, who is the impostor. For God hath 
made me, what none of ihem are, **an able minister of the 
New Testament — not of the letter, but of the spirit — for the 
letter killeth" — that is, you see, it makes fools of people: "but 
the spirit giveth life" — that is, there's some good fun, and work 
for science in it. 

As, look into history, or to anything that ever bore the name 
of history : where will you find the names, or anything like 
the names, of these sons of thunder, James and John, any 
account of any action they ever did, or any event in which they 
bore a part ? 

Of James, your only account is, that after having preached 
nothing, written nothing, spoken nothing, and done nothing, he 
was killed for nothing, by that eternally-reviving old child-kil- 
ler, King Herod. 

Of James the Just, following the romance, called ecclesiasti- 
cal history, he gets killed, in like manner, for nothing at all. 
And, like almost all the rest of them, he suffers his martyrdom 
in Heliopolis, or in Hieropolis, those words literally meaning 
the City of the Sun, and the Sacred City, the known and uni- 
versal metaphor for the Zodiac, in which all these martyrdoms, 
or bearing witnesses, are said to have happened, and in which 
alone, did any of these martyrs exist. 

John, however, the beloved son of thunder, never died at 
all ; for though he ceased to breathe on earth, we are assured, 
by the holy and most veracious Father of the Church, Saint 
Auguslin, that he continues to breathe under the earth; as he 
lies buried in the churchyard, at Ephesus, where St. Augustm 
himself could see the earth of his grave heave up and down, as 
the old man draws his breath. It was called a standing mira' 
de, for many hundreds of years, in the Christian church, not- 
withstanding the churchmen themselves could not deny that it 
was also a lying one. 

It* efficacy, however, in confirming the faith of the faithful, 
has been much diminished, owing to the fact of uur ciiurch- 



<>06 THE devil's pulpit. 

yards, to this day, presenting equally well-attested evidence of 
thousands of vampires, snoring away in damp sheets, and wait* 
ing for the glorious resurrection. 

As no history, no geography, no chronology, no annals, regis- 
ters, or vestiges of fact in all the world, has any account of the 
existence of such persons as these sons of thunder, shall we be 
blind to the light of evidence, which a perfect resemblance of 
names, and a perfect similarity of the fable, flashes on us, in 
proof, that the ancient paganism, and the mythology, which we 
now call Christianity, are one and the self-same religion. 

Observe, then, the demonstration, aiiji I do beseech you to 
bar me off from your convictions as long as you possibly can do 
so. Only be rational, and surrender your conviction, to nothing 
short of rational demonstration. 

Bear in mmd, then, the story which makes so distinguishing 
a portion of three out of four of our gospels, of the metamorpho- 
sis of Christ upon the holy mount. 

Bear in mind, that it was the distinguished and exclusive 
privilege of Peter, James, and John, to be witnesses of this 
metamorphosis, or transfiguration, or glorification, or what you 
please, of Christ upon this holy mount. 

Bear in mind, that if this had happened, as an incident pecu- 
liar to Christianity, it could not have happened before the found- 
ing of Christianity. 

Bear in mind, that your Christ in the gospel constantly speaks 
of his twelve disciples, or any one of them, as being one with 
himself, as he was one with the Father. 

Bear in mind, that the name James is always rendered into 
Latin, Jacohus, of which the termination, us, is merely gram- 
matical, and leaves us the name Jacob, ^jii^iy^r^py', that lac. Ob. — 
(Genesis, xxvi., 36.) 

But lacchus is the direct, undisguised, unconcealed, name of 
the god Bacchus, the god of wine: which, without its Latin ter- 
mination, is lac, the direct origin of our English Jack, the radi- 
cal of Jao, law, Jeue, and all our names for God : in which we 
are never to lose sight of the perfect analogy of physical phe- 
nomena with the theological allegory. As we always find/ac^, 
signifying God, and Tom, signifying the Devil. If you go to 
Heaven when you die, you will go to Jack of the box ; but if 
you go to the other place, you'll go to Hell and Tommy, 

But Ob=^ was a direct name of God, as signifying the Father, 
and added to lac, or Jack, made the whole name Jack-Ob — 
that is, God the Father. And Jack-Ob, called Jacob, was 

• A serpent, in the Egyptian language, was styled ob. — Bryant, 
vol. i. Ab generally signifies a father, indifferently styled Ab, Aub, 
and Ob.— J6., vol. ii., 202. 



THE devil's pulpit. 207 

applied to the grandson of Abraham, as being the father of the 
twelve Patriarchs. Those twelve patriarchs have been proved 
to be none other than the personified genii of the twelve divis- 
ions of the Zodiac, in the old allegory i and the twelve apostles 
are the same allegorical genii in the new. 

Thus is this Jack-Ob identified with God the Father, the 
lacchus, or Bacchus — that is, the Sun ; which is the father of 
the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

But how came Jacob and James — that is, Jack-Ob and 
I-AM-ES, to be universally understood, as perfectly synonymous 
names ; when they are certainly no more like each other, than 
the names Bacchus and Apollo, which were different and dis- 
tinct personifications of one and the self-same Deity in the 
Mythology? 

Iamus* — that is, again, without its Latin termination, I am, 
was the universal and most ancient name of the God Apollo. 
And his priests were called from his name, the Immidae, or 
Jameses. They were the very oldest order of priests, known in 
Greece : as the measure of verse, called Iambic, is derived from 
the hymns sung to the honor of lamus, consisting of a short 
syllable, followed by a long one ; and it is found in the poetry 
©f ail nations. 

The whole word James, anatomized into its Ammonian radi- 
cals, presents us with the eternally-recurring trinity in unity. 

I, the One; am, the heat; es, the Fire — that is, the one 
great source of Heat, the Fire, the Sun. 

Without the third syllable, the I-am — that is, the One, the 
heat, or warmth, or caloric, as distinguished from fire, the name 
is naturalized as a name of God, and ridiculously called the 
great ** Jam," as in that droll play upon words in the third of 
Exodus, Moses, said to God, **I say, what's your name ?" And 
God said to Moses, *' I am that I am ; and thou shalt say I am 
hath sent me unto you ;" which, in our ridiculous version, 
amounts to no more than if he had said his name was Thing-a* 
me-hoh, and Moses was to go to the children of Israel, and say 
to them, Thing-a-me-bob, or WhaVs-his-name, has sent me to 
you : which was as much information as the children of Israel 
could reasonable require, or perhaps as the subject admitted. 
It was the clearest revelation of the divine character that ever 
was in the world ; and the babes of Christ Jesus are quite as 
well satisfied with it, as the children of Israel. 

]Now, it happens most awkwardly, for any pretence to origi- 
nality, in our Christian Mythos, of the transfiguration of Christ 
upon the holy mount, that we have the same scene as occur- 

* lamus was the same as Apollo and Osiris. — Bryant, vol. 1. 
p. 321. 



208 THE devil's pulpit. 

ring to deities of the same name, in an infinite antiquity, befor* 
bis time, described in the sixth Olympic Ode of the poet Pin- 
dar, who flourished 500 years before the Christian era ; with 
this only difference, that in the poem of Pindar the tale is 
majestic^ sublime, and beautiful : whereas, in the gospel of 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is such a tale as, if it were found 
anywhere else, would be a disgrace to the children of Israel, 

Pindar, speaking of the God lamus — that is, James, who 
was believed to be conducted by Apollo to Olympia, says, that 
" they both came to the Petra (that is, to Peter, the Rock, to 
the Petra) Elibatos — that is, the Sun-trod Rock^^ (a favorite epi- 
thet for a rock, so high as to be only accessible to the all-climb- 
ing sun) upon the lofty Cronian mount ; there Apollo bestowed 
upon James a double portion of prophetic knowledge. 

Ikovto 6'vxpr}\oio Herpavj 
AXf/5artf l^poviSy 
'Etvd'oi coTraae dr]aavpoVj 
A.i6vnov ^avToavvas. 

We have no account, however, of any particular degree of 
knowledge possessed by any James of the gospel. Eusebius, 
however, so famous for supplying deficiences of evidence, had 
not lost sight of the idea, and assures us, that immediately after 
the Ascension, " our Lord imparted to James, John, and Peter, 
the gift of knowledge." 

And if he did so, 'tis the best account that can be given for 
the fact, that neither the one nor the other had ever more a 
word to say in favor of Christianity ; for so soon as their 
knowledge came in, their Christianity ran out. 

A man may, indeed, have knowledge of other kinds, and 
upon other subjects; but I am sure he can have none upon the 
subject of Christianity, if he has any higher respect for it than 
I have. But, 

" A wise man will hear, and will increase knowledge ; he 
will understand the proverb, and the interpretation thereof— 
the words of the wise, and their dark sayings." 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON SAINT JAMES AND SAINT 
JOHN, THE SONS OF THUNDER. 



m DEVIL'S PULPIT. 



*'AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS."— ^//a?i Cunningham, 

THE CRUCIFIIION OF CHRIST. 

A GOOD-FRIDAY SERMON,* 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE EEV. 
KOBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, NOV. 14, 1830. 

AXXsg eaojaeVj eavrov & dvvarai ooaac : ec BaatXeva iGparjX 
eoTt; /cara^aro) vvv arro th Gravps, rcac marevaoiiev avrco. 

** He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the King of 
Israel, let him now come down from the Cross, and we will be 
lieve him. — Matthew xxvii. 42. 

Was not this a blasphemous, cruel taunt, to cast in the teeth 
(if he had any teeth) of the poor bleeding Larab ; of whom, on 
this holy day, a hundred thousand Christians, quite as innocent as 
lambs, are singing that pretty stave : 

" Lo ! streaming from the fatal tree, 
His all-atoning blood : 
Is this the Infinite ? 'tis He, 
My Saviour, and my God." 

And I say, my God, too ! But ere I give ye any comment of 
my own, you shall have the text itself of Christian doctrine, to the 
full chorus of evangelical orthodoxy. 

" Well might the Sun in darkness hide 
And veil his glories in ; 
When God, the mighty Maker, died. 
For man (the Creature)'s sin." 

Watt's Jlijmns^ Booh 2, ITijmn 9, 

* Prosecuted for blasphemy. 



210 THE detil's pulpit. 

In the full tide of evangelical declamation, the fathers of our 
English church, pursuing to its full extent the dogma of the abso- 
lute divinity of Christ, in commemoration of thi^ day, which they 
call Good Friday, to this effect, address their admiring congrega- 
tions : — 

"Carry back your minds, ye faithful Christians, to the awful 
scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary. He who suffered on that bit- 
ter cross, was none other than the Creator of the world himself. 
^0 awful mystery I love divine ! there you behold the Almighty 
God an-aigned as a felon at the bar of Pontius Pilate. Him, who 
only hath immortality, tried for his life ; Jesus Christ, the righteous, 
found guilty: the author of nature, suffered : the Immortal God, 
expired : the Everlasting, ceased to be : the Eternal, was no more : 
the Great I am, was not: the living God, was dead. There was a 
radical reform in the Kingdom of Heaven ; the boroughmongers 
were turned out : the Jure-Divino-ship of God himself was no lon- 
ger respected ; ^God overall.' was put under ; 'Blessed for ever 
more,' ^i-^iS no more blessed ; 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' was wholly kicked 
out ; 'Jehovah's awful throne,' was declared vacant ; and the provi- 
sional government devolved into the hands of that venerable old re- 
publican , Lieutenant-General Beelzebub." 

Such, is not more than the consecutive tissue of absurdity which 
imagination must necessarily attach to that first and primordial 
absurdity, which the evangelical TTatts has consecrated in those 
words : 

*' God, the mighty Maker, died, 
For man (the Creature)'s sin." 

Nor 'does it exceed the licence of Catachresis, which, in an ex- 
temporaneous babbler, in a gospel shop, would be allowed to come 
within the propriety and solemnity of a most spiritual and sublime 
sermon. 

But, if we may relieve the cracking stretch of imagination, by 
borrowing so much physic from reason, as may work us into cool- 
ness, by imagining so much of the story only to be true, as will ad- 
mit of being imagined to be true (which, God knows, is very little 
of it). ^Vhy, then, in the case of one who had given himself out to 
be some great one, who had pretended that, in some supernatural 
sense, he was come from God and went to God, that he had really 
wrought miracles, healed the sick, and raised the dead : now seen 
himself to have need of a Saviour, seen himself to be dying : no 
challenge could be fairer, nor be conceived to be so, than that which 

• * In the Indictment. 



THE devil's pulpit. 211 

the chief priests and scribes, and elders, offer to him, in the fine 
irony, and noble sarcasm of the text : ''He saved others, himself he 
cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him come down from 
the cross, and we will believe him," 

Had there been any historical reality in the scene, the not ac- 
cepting of that challenge, the not coming down from the cross, when 
so called on so to do, was the greatest proof of imposture that im- 
posture of any sort could be conceived to have. 

And never was there an impostor upon earth, nor any means or 
faculty in man to distinguish between imposture and truth, if such 
a challenge, declined under such circumstances, were not an absolute 
proof of imposture. 

But God, it will be said, is not bound to give whatever parti- 
cular proof the impertiment incredulity of man might call for. But, 
with reverence be it spoken, by God and by his honour he is bound 
to do so : and the acquitting him from that bond, under the hypo- 
critical pretence of a submission to his will, is but the same kind 
of treason against the divine majesty, as that of the Roundheads 
against King Charles, when they took up arms in the king's name 
against the king's person ; and were for calling themselves his lov- 
ing subjects, while they cut his head off. ^^Let him come down 
from the cross, and we will believe htm." What fairer, what fitter 
proof of his divine mission, could have been proposed to him ? 'Twas 
the thing which he himself must have most wished to do. 

His rising from the dead afterwards ; if we ourselves had seen 
him rise, would not have been so strong a proof to us of his truth, 
as his not delivering himself from death, was a proof of his false- 
hood. 

But it was necessary, say our Christian credulists, that he should 
die, in order that he should rise again. Then, why did he die at 
all ? why that superfluous, gratuitous, unnecessary suffering, or ap- 
pearance of suffering, which could add nothing to the dignity of 
character, or to the proof of a divine mission, in a person who w^as 
really capable of surviving death? 

And, after all, if we are to reason upon the matter, and let the 
words we use have the proper meanings attached to them ; the re- 
surrection of Christ, in the sense our ignorant and stupid, if not 
wicked and deceitful clergy attach to it, involves a contradiction in 
terms, a saying and unsaying, a being and not being, at the same 
time ; which, if it is to be endured, why Bedlam must be the great 
seat of wisdom, slobbering idiocy, and stark staring madness, are 
to be our masters, and will turn poor reason out of doors for ever. 
For what is it to be dead? it it be not to be as dead as nuitton ; 
as dead as a door-nail — that is, utterly beyond the yussibditij, be- 



212 THE DEVILS PULPIT. 

yond the conceivability of again becoming alive ? If, then, it was 
possible that Christ could come to life again : it could not at the. 
same time have been impossible. But, if it was not impossible that 
he could come to life again ; then, he had never been in that state 
which answers to the definition of death: he had never been dead 
at all. 

And, if there had been any necessity for a manifestation of di- 
vine justice in the matter, why, in the name of God and of reason, 
should not that Jesus Christ, who had made a whip of cords, and 
turned out the poor tradespeople, and little shopkeepers, for the ve- 
nial offence of selling their wares in the church-yard : why should 
he not, for the much greater oSence of the aristocrats, the chief 
priests, and scribes , and pharisees, in seeking to crucify him, make 
a cat-o' -nine-tails, and lay it on their backs to such a tune as would 
have whipt the offending Adam out of 'em ? and brought them to 
their knees in true repentance. 

But such is, in every instance, the character of the boasted mo- 
rals of the gospel, ''the purest system of morals, ye see, that ever 
was in the world ; and where will ye find any thing to equal the 
morals of the gospels ?" 

The foor devils who had sought to keep soul and body together 
by picking up the honest penny that might be gained by selling 
nuts and oranges in the outer courts of the temple, have their bas- 
kets knocked over, and are flogged, scourged, and lacerated with 
stripes and wails : 

*' Which Mercy, with a bleeding heart, 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a dog;" 

While the poor and spotless clergy, might commit the greatest 
crime which the Sun ever saw, with impunity, might nail him who 
made them to the cross, blaspheme his Godhead, and defy his power. 
0, what a beautiful exhibition of moral justice is the gospel ! 

But, there is this relief to the matter, upon the Unitarian hy- 
pothesis, that, were the story viewed as a matter of history — which 
I am sure was never intended — and were all its pretended evidence 
to be received as good and valid evidence, and to be judged by the 
ordinary laws of evidence, as an honest jury would judge in any 
other case, it would not carry a verdict that Christ had ever been 
put to death at all. 

For what is the evidence ? 

1st. The disposition of Pilate to release Jesus, is admitted. 
^'From thenceforth Pilate sought to release him:' John xx. 12. 

2nd. The power of Pilate to release him, is admitted. ''Know- 



THE devil's pulpit. 213 

est thou not that I have power to crucify thee^ and have power to re- 
lease thee ?" John xx. 10. 

3rd. The declaration of Pilate, that he would release him, is ad- 
mitted. ^^ I will chastise him, and let him go,^' — that is, I will let 
him go : no less than a positive promise to do so. 

4th. The firmness of Pilate's character in that what he had once 
said he would do, in defiance of all the power of the chief priests : 
that he would do; ^'What 1 have written I have v)ritten,^' is ad- 
mitted. 

6th. The remonstrance of Pilate's wife, sent to him as he sat 
on the judgment-seat, to warn him to ^^have nothing to do with that 
Just Man,'' is admitted. Matthew xxvii. 19. 

6th. His own conviction, that he was a Just Man, is admitted. 
^^IJind in him no fault at all.'' 

7th. The fact of no person, but Pilate and his friends, having 
access to the presence of Jesus, in the judgment-hall, is admitted. 

8th. That the person whom Pontius Pilate presented as Jesus, 
and of whom he said, ^^Behold the man !" was disguised in a dress 
in which his person could not be recognised (most strongly imply- 
ing that he was not the man), is admitted. 

9th. The strange and unaccountable appearance of ^^ Simon, the 
Cyreman, the Father of Alexander, and Rufus, coming out of the 
country," and being seized upon, and compelled to carry the cross, 
is admitted. 

And upon these admissions, it is found in evidence, that the ab- 
solute grammatical construction of the text of both Matthew, Mark, 
and Luke (that is, of three out of the four), as read as it ought to 
be, and would be in a court of law, on a trial for murder, is most 
positively and literally to the sense, that *'it was not Jesus Christ, 
but Simon, the Oyrenian, who was crucified. For in each of these 
fatal sentences, there is no other accusative in relief, to be govern- 
ed, of the verb, they crucified^ but the accusative or objective case 
of the pronoun him, answering to the noun, Simon the Oyrenian,'' 
{^ 2^1 ey found Simon, him they compelled to bear his cross, to him 
they gave vinegar to drink, and they crucified him.) 

While Luke, still more conclusively has the positive words, that 
immediately upon their laying hold of Simon the Oyrenian, they led 
Jesus away — that is, they got him out of the crowd ; so that he 
stood leisurely by, (andf upon seeing Poor Simon tucked up in his 
place, he endeavoured to comfort him, by assuring him, that it was 
all a mistake. ''Father,,*' says he, addressing himself to old Simon, 
^^ Father Simon, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They 

*In the ludictment. f Had. 



214 THE devil's pulpit. 

think that it's me that they're crucifying but they've got you 
don't take it to heart, Simon ; you know you must die sometime oi 
other, and it's quite as fair that you should be crucified for my sal- 
vation, as I for yours.") 

And that they really had got the wrong man (that is, if they had 
got any man at all) is rendered still further probable, by the very 
different behaviour of the person, whom they had seized by mistake, 
from that which we should naturally have expected from the meek 
and holy Jesus. 

Jesus would have been resigned to the will of God, would have 
met his death with fortitude, as knowing that it was all a hoax, 
and that he should be none the worse for it a day or two after. He 
would have set us an example of that faith, and that joy and peace 
in believing, which, we are told, always accompanies the dying 
scenes of the faithful. But the wretch who was substituted in his 
place, either the chief Barabbas, or Simon the Cyrenian, which ever 
it was, was a blaspheming infidel, and groaned out his guilty soul 
in the most frightful ejaculation of despair and blasphemy : ^'My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me .^" Could this be Jesus, 
this despairing wretch, this conscience-stricken coward, this blas- 
pheming ingrate ? It is impossible : I should rather think it was the 
Devil himself ; as, certainly, if devine justice required that some- 
body should suffer for our sins, who so fit to suffer, as the Devil, who 
had been the cause of them ; and who so unfit as poor Jesus, who 
had done all he could to prevent our sinning. 

With this sense and reading of the matter, comports the whole 
theory of Christian doctrine. As you will find the holy Apostle 
Paul, most emphatically declaring, that the very essence and de- 
finition of gospel-preaching consisted in this : '' We preach Jesus 
Christ, and him criLcified" — that is, not that Jesus Christ was cru- 
cified (who but a fool could have thought so ? but Jesus Christ v^sls 
one person, and him that was crucified was another ; and the apos- 
tle, therefore, preached 'em both, Irjasv Xptarov, Kac ttu6v 
epravpcofjievov. 

We are, therefore, called upon, as Christians, to have a thank- 
ful remembrance of the death of him. that was crucified — that is, we 
are glad of it, it served him right, and the Devil take him ; where- 
as, it would have been our duty to be exceeding sorry for the cir- 
cumstance, had it been poor Jesus that had been crucified, as most 
certainly it was not. 

We find, too, upon farther inquiry into the matter, that (all 
that the blessed Jesus had to do with the cross, was not to bear it 
himself, but to get Simon the Cyrenian to bear it for him ; not 



THE devil's pulpit. 215 

that he suffered a defeat, but that he gained a victory ; not that he 
was nailed to the cross, but that he himself nailed, or caused to be 
nailed, to the cross, the Cheirography,^ or handwriting, that was 
against us," nailmg ?Y," says the apostle, ^'to his Cross." (So, ye 
see, it was not the nail that was in his hand, but the hammer : f) 
he was not the vanquished, but the victor : (he did not sufler, but 
he triumphed on the cross. f) 

(Nor is it ever said, in any part of the gospel, that Christ 
showed himself alive after his death, which we know was impossible, 
the strongest expression of all being that in the first of the Acts 
of the Apostles, that '^he showed himself alive after his Passion.^* 
Mera to Tracpecv gvtov^ not ^lera to ano(j)aveLv avTOV^ 
as the Greek would have been, had it meant after his death, but af- 
ter his PASSION. And what was to hinder him from showing him- 
self alive after his passion. A man may put himself into a passion, 
I hope, and put himself out of it again, without breaking a blood- 
vessel.f) 

And when the Jews wanted to kill him, and actually did kill Si- 
mon the Cyrenian, or somebody else, whom they mistook for him, it 
was enough to try the patience of Job himself 

We are not, therefore, so to confound all grammar in words and 
all reason in ideas, as to take Jesus Christ, and him crucified, for only 
one person: when words cannot be plainer to the sense, than they 
where two ; and two the most distinct and opposed, that any words 
whatever could describe to be distinct and opposed. 

Jesus Christ was the person who certainly was in a passion; but 
him crucified, was the person who put him into the passion. And 
Jesus Christ is as certainly, and as clearly, defined, as the person 
who was not crucified, as the other fellow — i. e. ^'him crucified," is 
defined as the person that was, him that was cruci^ed 

And here, again, as in ten thousand instances, you find, that it 
is him whom they call the Devil's Chaplain^ after all, who is the only 
faithful preacher of the gospel. 

God hath made me what none of the fellows as the other shops 
are, — "an able minister of the New Testament." I alone, do truly 
answer to the apostolic character. I alone, of all the bishops and 
priests in this miserable be-bishop'd and be-priested metropolis, do 
preach ^^ Jesus Christ, and him crucified .*" whereas they have run 
away with but half the story and that, the wrong half They have 
represented him as crucified, who never was so , and him as dead, 

* To yetpoypadov. Coloss. ii. 14. f In the Indictment. 



216 THE devil's pulpit. 

who, as St. Luke says, "did show himself by many infallible proofs 
to be alive." 

For, if it be not proof, sirs, and proof infallible, that a man had 
not been crucitied, or not much hurt and certainly no killed ; and tliat 
there must have been some egregious mistake in any representation, 
that he had been so ; when he is seen, three or four days afterwards, 
alive, shaking hands with his friends all around, eating and drinkiug 
with them, and after supper, playing with them at his old game of 
making riddles upon the Bible, and explaining to them, out of Moses 
and the Prophets, how it ought to have been, and how he ought to 
have suffered. "What is proof?" as he says to them, in Luke xxiv. 25 : 
"0 ye fools and slow-hearts, ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things and to enter into his glory?" Yes, to be sure, he ought; but 
there's a little diflerence, I hope, between things being what ought 
to be, and being what was. If every fellow that ought to be hanged, 
was to be hanged, what would become of Judge Jefferies ? 

In setting oai'selves to decipher, or make out the significancy or 
hidden meaning of any confessedly Pagan allegory, we invariably 
begin with the severest possible scrutiny into the names or nomen- 
clature of the machinery. We weigh the force of every letter of 
which the names are composed, of every significancy which the 
names could convey, and of every variation of letters by which the 
same name might be exhibited. We inquire into the history of 
that name ; we compare lists of all the synonymes of the name ; 
we trace that name to its roots ; and thus, often discover, to demon- 
stration (the discovery itself being held to be demonstrative) , that 
the name which millions of persons might have borne, in its first 
purport, was not a personal name, — as, a Mr. West, a Mr. South, 
a Mr. East, or Mr. North, whose real existence, as persons, could not 
be doubted, would bring us to no conclusion as to the origin of 
these terms, North, South, East, and West, which undoubtedly had 
no original personal significancy. So Atlas, of the mythology, a 
word signifying great labour, or toil, is found in its significancy 
to be the same as the name of the apostle. Saint Andrew, of the 
Christian-fable, which signifies the strong one, but who was no 
more a real personage than Saint Atlas. As it is the allegorical 
language of Saint Andrew, in the 75th Psalm ; " When I receive 
the congregation, 1 shall judge according unto right. The earth 
is weak, and all the mJiabitants thereof I bear upon the pillars 
of It'' 

As you find the position of St. Andrew, is in the Scales of Jus- 
tice, where the San crosses the Equator, at the Autumnal Equinox. 
When St. Andrew " receives the congregation " — that is, when the 



THE devil's pulpit. 211 

Sun, personified as St. Andrew, enters into the constellation, or 
congregation of Stars, called Libra, he is in the Balance of Justice; 
he will once again give an equal length of day and night to all the 
inhabitants if the earth, which, notwithstanding its declining state, 
still depends upon him for its support. While, as if to prevent ail 
possibility of mistaking the astronomical significancy of this genius, 
you invariably find the figure of St. Andrew represented as that of 
a man, about sixty years old, when the blood is getting somewhat 
cooler than once it was, standing with a saltier cross behind his 
back, a goniometer, or exact measure of the angle which the Sun 
in the Ecliptic makes in passing over the line of the Equator. As 
St. Paul expressly defines this old man, as" kim that was crucified,'* 
knowing this, that our old man — i. e., our Old Andrew, is crucified. 
Romans, vi. 6. 

The Saint Andrew of the gospel being none other than the Saint 
Michael, the archangel of the Apocalypse ; you have him, under this 
name, standing at the Autumnal foot of the Great Solar Arch ; 
and so seeming to bear it upon his shoulder, and giving his name 
to the 29th of September, which is Michaelmas-dsij, 

And Andrew is the brother of Peter, as James is the brother of 
John. Because, these four Genii or Saints, independently of their 
allegorical character, as Genii of their respective months, have the 
peculiar honour of being Genii of the four seasons of the year, Spring, 
Summer, Autumn, and Winter : of which Peter is Spring, com- 
mencing in March : when the Sun enters the cocstellation of the 
Lamb or Ram : and hence it is, that in the allegorical picture, it 
is Peter alone, out of all the glorious company of the apostles, to 
whom his master, the Sun, immediately after his resurrection — that 
is, after his having crossed the line, gives that allegorical charge, 
^*Feed my Lamhs'^ and ^'Feed my Sheep,'' 

And Andrew, is Autumn. The church or church history, 
having consecrated the belief, on no evidence whatever, and for no 
supposeable reason, but the accurately astronomical one, that St. 
Andrew hung two days upon the cross, which is exactly the length 
of time which the Sun seems to hang, in perfect equilibrio, upon the 
line of the Equator. 

And, as the Sun, in the order of nature, crosses the Equator 
twice every year; so you will find, in your New Testament allegory, 
that there are actually two crucifixions, and Christ is said to be cru- 
cified twice — that is, once upon Mount Calvary, the place of a skull 
(as if to say, brains were of no use to that skull that is so thick as 
not to find out the meaning of the allegory). 

As here you see, most literally is, the place of a skull, Moiiut 

10 



218 THE devil's pulpit. 

Calvary, the head of the Great Monster, Cetus, which the crucified 
Lamb of God is crushing beneath his feet. 

And once in Egypt, *' where also our Lord was crucified.'^ 
Rev. XL 8. And after which Autumnal Crucifixion, " he descended 
into Hell,'' under the custody of the Archangel Michael (b^D'iTa) 
*' Who is like to God ?" — (Cruden). By Catholics, rendered ''Equal 
with God,'' Tvhich, though theologically adsurd, is, as you see, as- 
tronomically correct. For the points of the Vernal and Autumnal 
Equinoxes, being on the same parallel, as here you see Hercules, the 
Andrew, rises at the same time with the Balance. And that God 
— that is, the Lord of Hosts, Gad, a troop, never meant any other 
than the Lamb of the Zodiac, to which Michael is thus literally and 
astronomically equal, you have the concurrent testimony of both 
Daniel and John, prophet and apostle, who, describing the person 
of God, assure us that the " hair of his head was like wool." So you 
have the same astronomical enigma, couched in the allegorical epi- 
thet of "the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world," — that is, 
the Lamb of March, and "Jesus Christ the Righteous, who appeared 
once in the e7id of the world, to put away iniquity," — that is, once 
again to put an end to the unevenness of the days and nights, by ap- 
pearing in the Balance of September. And thus, it is Christ upon 
Mount Calvary in Spring : but it is Jesus, in the Garden of Gethse- 
mane, in Autumn. And hence, the first Martyr, St. Stephen (whose 
name, Sre^ai'o^, is the Greek word for a Crown, and who never was, 
nor meant, any other than the Corona Septentrionalis, or Northern 
Crown, which you see here at all times in the heavens, rising and 
setting with the Scales of September): though he had heard of the 
crucifixion of Christ, never dreamed of the resurrection of Christ : 
beause, after the Autumnal Crucifixion, which is that which St. Ste- 
phen bears witness to, the Sun does not rise again, but goes to Hell 
and Tommy — that is St. Thomas's-day, the shortest day in the year: 
and, therefore, St. Stephen, in the crucifixion which he refers to. 
predicates not of a Crucified Lamb, but of that most singularly as 
tronomical personification, " that Just One, of whom," says he, " ye 
have been now the betrayers and murderers." 

" That Just One" being the directly allegorical name of the 
personification of the Sun, as considered in the Scales of Sep- 
tember. 

And Saint Stephen, who is this Stephanos Arcticos, discovered 
by his Greek name, which signifies the Northern Crown, gets the 
name of the First Martyr ; because at that epocha of time, to whicri 
this allegory synchronizes, the point of the Vernal Equinox, was 
in Libra : and then, as you^ee, on this globe, Saint Stephen rtaljy 



THE DEVILS PULPIT. 219 

is the first Martyr. And it is, with reference only to this effect ol 
the precession of the Equinoxes, which has caused, and will again 
and again cause, that the vSpring quarter may occur in Autumn, 
and that of Autumn, where now 'tis Spring ; so that we may have 
Summer in January, and Winter in July, that the astrologueof the. 
gospel instructs his disciples, that in the Kingdom of Heaven *' there 
be first, which shall be last — and last, which shall be first." 

And thus, as Peter has the keys of Heaven, so his brother, An- 
drew has the keys of Hell. And as the brothers, Peter and Andrew, 
are personifications of spring and autumn ; so the brothers, James 
and John, are the Genii respectively, of summer and winter. 

And these personifications are consecrated in the visible heavens, 
by those four distinguished Stars of the first magnitude, known by 
the name of theRoyal Stars, which the Sun seems to near or approach 
as he divides to us these four seasons of the year : 

Aldebarau, the Bull's eye, in April. 
Regulus, the Lion's heart, in July. 
Antares, in the Scorpion of October ; and 
Formalhaut, in the Fishes' Mouth of January. 

That it is the Yernal Crucifixion, or crossing of the Equator by 
the Sun, when he enters the sign of ArieSj the Ram, as he does ou 
the 21st of March, and no crucifixion of any man, nor any even that 
ever happened upon earth, that was the subject of the Fast of Good 
Friday, and the Feast of Easter, that follows it; is demonstrated in 
the historical fact, that this Fast and Feast have been religiously ob- 
served in the Spring of the year in every country of the world, and 
in every era of time, of which a record of any sort has descended to 
our own ; and observed, too, with the very same ceremonies, to 
the very same significancy, and even with the very same words. 
And the Christ of the Spring Crucifixion is celebrated ; because, 
after the Passover, he ascends into Heaven, and we look forward 
to the joyful Summer. But the Christ of the Autumnal Pass- 
over descends into Hell ; and we must prepare for the gloomy 
Winter. 

I'hree hundred and eighty-eight years before our date of the pre- 
tended birth of a man, called Jesus Christ, the Yernal Equinoctial 
point — that is, the point exactly at which the Sun crosses or passes 
over the Equator, was in the first degree of the Lam6 ; and since 
that time, all nations of the earth have celebrated this annual phoe- 
nomenon, under the allegorical veil of a crucified Lamb. And all 
the difference that ever was between the Jewish and the Christian 
ceremony, is so much difference and no more, that as a man may 



220 THE devil's pulpit. 

imagine between the words, cross over, and pass over. And this 
cross over, or pass over, is universally celebrated, at that season 
when the Sun does pass over ; and the Sun does, or did for many 
ages, pass over, oj cross the line, when he enters the constel- 
lation of the Lamb, which the Jews call the Paschal, or Pays- over 
Lamb. 

The Jewish ceremony, consisted essentially in eating their Lamb; 
the Christian ceremony in " eating the flesh and drinking the blood 
of the Lamb of G-od, that taketh away the Sin of the World." 

And this festival of Easter, on which all other festivals depend, 
always falling after the first Sunday after the first full Moon, which 
happens next after the 21st of March, when the Sun passes over, 
or crosses over the Equator, and enters into the Lamb, when the 
Jews eat theiv pass-over lamb , and the Christians eat their cross-oi;^r 
lamb — this lamb-eating, always follows after the long fast of Lent, 
during which, it was always the most damnable sin, that a man 
could commit, to eat anything but fish, as here you see the constel- 
lation of the Lamb comes immediately after that of the Fishes. And 
of those who cannot see, I ask no more faith in my word, than that 
they will believe me, that the month of March comes after that of 
February. But in the ceremony of taking the Sacrament, it is both, 
the crucifixions or pass-over that are celebrated ; and we eat his flesh, 
in honor of the Yernal Crucifixion ; and drink his blood in honour 
of the Autumnal Crucifixion : his blood being nothing else than 
the blood of the grapes, which are ripe in September — as his flesh 
is the mutton ready for the spit in Spring. 

Thus, as to preach the gospel, is declared by the speaker in the 
gospel to be the same thing as ^'to preach the acceptable year of 
the Lordy So "the doctrine of the Cross," — that is, the science of 
it, is none other than the science of astronomy. And I alone, ye 
see, am the only faithful minister of the gospel, and true preacher 
of the cross, in all this priest-ridden, priest-insulted, and priest- 
cheated metropolis. And, in bearing the name of the Devil's Cha- 
plain, and Bishop of Hell, and every other reproachful epithet that 
Christian malice can fasten on me, I hear the reproach of the Cross. 
And if this way of preaching seem to you to be foolishness, it 
seems so, not because you are believers in Christ, but because you 
are not. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that 
believe not — that is, that understand not ; that ken not, that sap 
not, that are not up to it. But to us, who are up to it, who do 
understand it, who see through it, and see through all the vile, 
canting, hypocrisy of the reverend knaves who would hinder yon 
from seeing through it, this preaching of the cross, which they call 
foolishness, is, most literally, preaching " the power of God, and 



THE DEVIL^S PULPIT. 221 

the wisdom or science of God," — that is, of the Sun in the constel- 
lation of the Lamb, in which the Cross takes place, and which is 
the tribe of Gad ; the same, whether you call him Adonis, or Jesus, 
Mars, the God of War, or Yahou, the Lord of Hosts. 

And they it is, who want to put down the Rotunda, who are 
" the enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose God is their belly, and 
who mind earthly things :" whereas, the true doctrine of the Cross 
has no earthly foundation whatever; and I, its true preacher, do set 
my affections on things above, not on things of the earth ; and my 
conversation is, as you see and hear, in Heaven, where, and where 
alone, as you may see, in this delineation, is the Crucified Lamb, 
which the Sun enters in March, and where is the Lamb's Wife — ■ 
that is, Mrs. Lamb, in the Virgin of August. As the Psalmist 
sublimely exclaims : ('^ ^^For ever, Lord, thy word is true in 
Heaven.*' And so it is : but it was never true on earth : and none 
but a fool or a dunce would ever have dreamed that it was so.) 
And they who have represented Christ and his apostles as per- 
sons that ever existed upon earth, do turn the truth of God into 
a lie. 

Nor was it till the year 680 of our era, under the reign of Con- 
stantine Pagonatus, in the 6th Coustantinopolitan Council, held 
under Pope Agathus, that in the 82nd decree of that council, it 
was decreed, and the decree subsequently ratified by Pope Adrian 
the First, that instead of Christ's being represented under the 
form of a crucified Lamb, which had, up to that time, been the 
only emblem of the crucifixion, he should be represented in the 
hideous and disgusting form of a crucified man. 

As here, I have the happiness of showing you, on the unques- 
tionable authority of the learned and pious Casalius, a plate of 
the oldest form of the crucifix, preserved in the Vatican of Rome, 
where you see Christ is represented as the bleeding lamb, standing 
upon a mount under the cross, and bleeding from his five wounds, 
one in each foot, and the fifth from his breast, in allegory of the five 
winter months, October, November, December, January, and Fe- 
bruary, during which the Sun really and literally is, below the 
cross, precisely as in the sacred Hieroglyph you see him repre- 
sented. 

Nor was it till the middle of the fifteenth century, the year 1468, 
that any eye of man had seen the fraudulently-pretended passage 
of Tacitus, which the monks foisted into the text of that historian, 
to make it appear that the crucified lamb was a crucified man, and 
to disguise and hide the real origin and significancy of the Chris 
tiau religion, by giving an appearance of history to most mani- 



222 THE devil's pulpit, 

festly intended fiction ; and to found on that crucifixion and^ 
resurrection, which had reference only to natural phoenomena, a 
belief of a dead man coming to life again, and absurdities so 
monstrous, that no man dared tell them to another without first 
making him promise, that he wouldn't laugh at them. 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST. 



Tl DiVIL'S PUIPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT lS:'^Allan Cunningham. 

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 

A SERMON,* 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, APRIL 3, 1831. 

*^Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed Garments from 
Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling m the 
greatness of his strength ? I that speak in righteousness, 
mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and 
thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine vat ? I have 
trodden the wine-press alone ; and of the people there was none 
with me: For I will tread them in mine anger, and trample 
them in my fury ; and their blood shall he sprinkled upon my 
garments^ and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of 

* Prosecuted for blasphemy. — [This Sermon was re-delivered, 
by the Learned Expounder of Scripture Allegory, on Sunday evening 
last (June 5), to a crowded and highly-gratified congregation. Garbled 
extracts of the preceding discourse, on Good-Friday (No. 14), from the 
first three counts of the indictment. The 4:th, 6th, and 6th, are muti- 
lated sentences (in like manner tacked together with the tautological 
farrago of the law) from the present sermon. This medley of priestly 
patchwork was served on the Rev. Gentleman on the 11th of April fol- 
lowing, from the Surrey Sessions. The trial is fixed for the 4:th of July 
next. The result is not feared — free inquiry, and free discussion, mis- 
named hlasphewy, having ceased to terrify any but wrong doers and 
tithe-eaters. His congregation claim for their Instructor that, which ho 
has invariably offered to his adversaries — " a fair stage, without favour." 
Let this be granted on his trial ; and they feel assured that the verdict 
of an unpacked jury, having the common inlets of understanding, and 
capacity enough to distinguish metaphor from simple fact, will be in 
accordance with their wishes.] — Reporter, 



224 THE devil's pulpit. 

vengeance is in mine hearty and the year of my redeemed is 
come. And I looked and there was none to help^ and I won- 
dered that there was none lo uphold, therefore mine own arm 
brought salvation unto me ; and my fury, it upheld me. And 
I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them 
drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the 
Earth. I ivill mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord, and 
the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath be- 
stowed on us, and the great goodness towards the house of 
Israel, which he hath bestowed on them, according to his mercies, 
and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. For 
he said, ^Surely they are my people, children that will not lie :* 
So he was their Saviour.'' — Isaiah Ixiii 1-8. 



And there ends the substantive matter of this whole holy text, 
" So he was their Saviour.'' Very well, gentlemen, very well ; I 
suppose he was their Saviour : the Saviour of the "Children that 
would not lie ! Only they must be a very extraordinary sort of 
children, that would not lie ; for all the children we have ever 
known, have been devilishly given to lying, especially the forty and 
fifty years old children, the babes and sucklings of the gospel, and 
the " any-old- clothes" children, with their nasty clotted beards, as 
thick asthe twigs in a birch broom, whom they call ''the Children 
of Israel." 

And a droll way of saving the children it must be, to tread 
upon them, and trample them, and make 'em drunk, and bring down 
their strength to the earth : and to be in the Devil's own rage and 
fury with them, to squeeze their insides out, and to stain all his 
garments with their blood. Lord ! Lord ! Lord ! what a 
strange sort of salvation ! This is to be the blessed effect of divine 
revelation. 

Now go away. Christian, decamp ! retire to the other shop, " for 
here is not your rest." 

Here, we are going to look at what Christians never dared to 
inquire after, the meaning of all this. Here, we are going to com- 
mit the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, the sin of being 
rational. Here, we are going to repeat the crime that damned the 
whole human race. We are going to plnck of the forbidden fruit 
of knowledge, that grows under this leafy wilderness of words 
Well may your priests and preachers of the gospel warn ye, for 
your souls' sake, and for God's sake — that is, for their sakes, to 
keep away from the Rotunda ! Well have they sought to hold me 
up to public execration, by fastening on me the opprobrious title 



THE devil's pulpit. 225 

of The Devil's Chaplain : since, like the Devil, I am playing the 
Devil with their craft, and do tempt ye to take, pluck, and eat ot 
that forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge ; " for God doth 
know, that in the day that ye eat thereof, then shall your eyes be 
open," and it shall not be in the power of those reverend impostors 
to insult you with their gospel, and to tread and trample on you, 
as they have done, any longer. 

I announced, in a preceding discourse, that I would, in due 
sequence, serve y6 up " the Cup of Salvation,'^ out of which, if ye 
thirst after knowledge, ye should drink the very nectar of the gods ; 
so rich a draught of genuine science, and of real learning, as but 
once to have drank thereof, shall destroy in you, for ever, all relish 
for the beggarly small-beer of the gospel shop. 

Observe ye, first, the positions of this table of the Lord, and its 
mystical furniture, the bread of life, and the cup of salvation, as 
placed upon this table. 

You are to suppose this table situate exactly in the East, — con- 
fronting, or directly opposite to, the West. It is not so ; but your 
imaginations must help our science. 

All our churches and chapels to this day are built, as all the 
Pagan Pagodas and Temples of the Sun, through unrecorded ages, 
were, so as to have their altars in the East : and all the light allowed 
to fall on that mystic table, was such alone as could gleam through 
that window in the East, darkened, obscured, and shaded, as much 
as conveniently might be, by the cultivated growth of ivy, trained 
to grow on the church wall, and to spread its dark foliage, as a 
leafy umbrella, over that sacred window ; the Ivy, before the inven- 
tion of glass, serving to keep off the showers, or to prevent too 
much light from shining on the mysteries of that dark table, there 
being nothing that the priests, whether Pagan or Christian, Catho- 
lic or Protestant, were ever so much afraid of, as of letting in too 
much light upon their Sacraments, 

But the Ivy, sirs ! Why is Ivy trained, to this day, to grow in 
Christian church-yards, and to spread its leaves over the eastern 
window, immediately over the sacred table, and sacred '' Cup of 
Salvation," standing on that sacred table, in " the order for the 
administration of the Holy Communion," but because Ivy* was 
the peculiar emblem of the Jolly God, Bacchus, who is always 
represented as crowned with a garland of Ivy-leaves ? And Bac- 
chus and Christ Jesus were never more different from each other, 
than six and a half-dozen, — or than different versions of the same 
substantive allegory — Jesus being indisputably one of the names 
of Bacchus — 

* Ilcdera Helix, 

io» 



226 THE devil's pulpit. 

As Mr. Pope, in his epistle of Sappho to Phaon, has rendered 
those beautiful lines of Ovid : 

•' Sume fidem et pharetram, fies manifestus Apollo. 
Accidant capiti cornua, Bacchus eris." 

The harp and bow would you like Phoebus wear, 
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear. 
Would you with Ivy wreathe your flowing hair, 
Not Bacchus self -with Phaon could compare. 

But, in towns and cities, where Ivy is not so conveniently to 
be raised, you see the same effect aimed at, by stained glass,* or 
painted windows, exhibiting allegorical representations of the same 
Bacchus — that is, of the Sun, as he appears in the visible heavens, 
the day after Michaelmas-day — that is, immediately after he has 
crossed over, or been crucijied, by crossing over the line of the 
Equator, at the point of the Autumnal Equinox, which is the last 
day of September, the last day of the process of wine-making, or 
of the annual vintage ; and was, at the time of the adaptation of 
this allegory to the phenomena of nature, the last day of the Sun's 
position in the Scales of Justice, or righteousness. 

So that he is represented as ^'Christ taken down from the Cross,''^ 
a dead man, with all the blood drawn out of him, that precious 
blood which he shed for us men, and for our Salvation, when he 
" came down from Heaven." 

And where is his blood ? Why, where should it be, but in that 
" Cup of Salvation,^' standing upon that sacramental table, just as 
it was drawn out of the Bacchanalian barrel, on which the Ivy- 
crowned Bacchus sits like a drunken boy at the good vintner's 
shop. And as I feel a little bit blood-thirsty just at this moment ; 
and as the Catholic clergy very sensibly held, that there was no 
occasion to give up the cup to the laity, I shall, with your permis- 
sion, keep the cup to myself, hoping that your faith will be satis- 
fied, by seeing me drink it as your representative. {Drinks. 
"And now," in the sublime poetry of Watts' Hymns, as sung 
in a hundred chapels and churches, in this infinitely be-chapeled 
and be-churched metropolis : 

"And now I drink my Saviour's blood, (^Drinks. 

1 thank thee, Lord, 'tis generous wine ; 
Mingled with love, the fountain flowed 
From that dear bleeding heart of thine. — (^Hymn 18.) 

"^ See the Methodist Chapel in Queen-street, which is hideously tene- 
brous. 



I 



THE devil's pulpit. 22t 

This soul-reviving wine, 

Dear Saviour 'tis thy blood : (Drinks, 

We thank that precious flesh of thine, 

For this immortal food." — {Book 3, Hymn 17.) 

Or, as I have read those liaes of Dr. Watts plagiarized, and 
but little altered, in the composition of quite as good a poet as Dr. 
Watts — the Eev. Dr. Towzer, a famous hand at doggerel : 

" 'Tis the same blood, in wine or swipes, 
'Tis God's own blood, we vow ; 
And when we feel it in our tripes, 
We feel we don't know how."* (Drinh^,, 

Nothing can be more sublime than this language : only, the 
awKwardness of it is, when they who use this sort of language as 
that of the most fervent piety in their mouths, would represent it 
as blasphemy in ours : and would punish us for only quoting and 
repeating their own ipsissima verba, their very, very words. 

What says their own Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, the 
pride and glory of their Christian church, in the third century, 
whose language is held to be none other than that of orthodoxy 
itself? 

Cruci haeremus, sanguinem sugimus, et inter ipsa redemptoris 
nostri vulnera, figimus linguam." " We stick to the Cross, we suck 
the blood, and we loll our tongues in the very wounds of our Re- 
deemer, 

There can be no doubt at all, that this is figurative language. 
Only one cannot help sympathising with the liability of its being 
misunderstood, when preached by our missionaries to convert the 
blubber-lipt and copper-coloured souls of our brothers and sisters 
in the Pacific Ocean, — such as 

*Hokey, Poyke, Wankee, Fum, 
And the King of the Cannibal Islands." 

Especially when 'tis taken into the account, that the missiona- 
ries themselves could no more explain the meaning of those figures 
of speech, to the cannibals, than the cannibals could to them. 

For but ask them, sirs ! nay ask any of your preachers of the 
gospel, that live and die in the fat of idleness, here at home. Where- 
fore SPIOULD IT BE THAT GoD SHOULD FORGIVE OUR SINS, BECAUSE 

OF Christ's blood? — {Sixth article of the Indictment.) What 
Sequitur, what connection, what relevancy, of the one thing to 
the other ? 

* In the Indictment. 



228 THE devil's pulpit. 

Is it that we killed his only son, the greatest of all conceivable 
sins ; and for that sin, he is so pleased with us, that it was the best 
thing that ever was done in the world ; and for that sin's sake, he not 
only forgives us that sin, but all the other sins that we could possibly 
commit ? Can your clergy answer this ? They cannot, they never 
could : I can, and will. What keason can your clergy give ? 
— {Sixth article of the Indictment*) None, absolutely none : and 
in their default, I offer you a reason, for which I ask no other favour 
from you, as rational men, than that you should withhold your con- 
viction, as long as you can do so, even as long as you can. I ask 
no man's consent from his favour. I will make it mine by right of 
conquest. 

" The reason why the blood of Christ does induce God 
to forgive us our sins is, that he likes a drop of the 
Crater as well as we do ; that puts him into a good humour, 

AND THEN HE IS NOT SO PARTICULAR ABOUT US." {SlXtk article 

of the indictment.) 

. And see, sirs ! I call heaven and earth to witness, the starry 
seat of God most high, in the visible Heaven, the typical Cup of 
Salvation upon earth, and the mystic enigma of sacred theology, 
enucleated by demonstrations of irrefragable science, that this is 
the true, the only reason. 

Look up, sirs ! upon the vanity bosom of the night, or upon 
this beautiful toy, the pictured representation of what is there to 
be seen : and there is that Crater, which the Lord loveth ; and 
here is that Crater which the Lord loveth, pictured on this globe ; 
and here is that Crater upon this eidouranic table, which, I thank 
God, is no picture at all, and which I love as well as he. 

The Crater is not an Irish, but a Latin word, signifying the 
bowl or cup of salvation. It was always represented in delineations 
of the starry heavens, as a cup having two handles — a sufficient 
hint, as I hope it may prove, to my Christian persecutors, that, in 
seeking to throw me a second time into prison, for blasphemy, they 
have taken hold of the Crater by the wrong handle. 

Observe, now, the position of this Crater, in the heavenly city, 
and then see if the Lord does not love a drop of the Crater, as well 
as we. It is at or near, the gate, or going out, of the Celestial 
Sion ; always near, and a little below the point of the Autumnal 
Equinox, and coming before it, in order to be ready to catch the 
precious fruit of the vintage. 

And hence it is, because of the good drink in that cup always 
situate so near the gate of that heavenly city, that of the Lord 
who loves a drop of the crater as well as we do, it is said, in the 
allegorical conuudrum of the 87th Psalm, *' The Lord loveth the 



THE devil's pulpit. 229 

gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob," — that is, more 
than all the other signs of the Zodiac, which are the maasioDs ol 
the Sun, the dwellings of Jack Ob — that is, of God the Father, 
of whom says the Christ of the gospel, "In my Father' a House 
are many Mansions ,"" And, by essential metonomy of language, 

*' Metonomy doth new names impose, 
And things for things by near relation shows." 

To love the gate, could never mean anything else than to love 
the good entertainment that you get at the gate ; and to love the 
Crater could never mean anything else than to love the good stuff 
that was in the Crater. For I believe we should all of us be inno- 
cent enough of any excessive attachment to the cup, if the cup 
were as empty of good stuff as Christian prosecutors for blasphemy 
are of good feelings. ''And why V says the Psalmist in his 75th, 
" God is the judge : he putteth down one, and setteth up another. 
For in the hand of the Lord there is a Cup, and the Wine is red; 
it is full mixed, and he poureth out of the same.^^ 

And, like him, I pour out the red wine, and I pledge him from 
the bottom of my heart. 

And if he be a just Judge, just as is the Sun, when in the Scales 
of September (he gives an equal length of day to all the inhabi- 
tants of the earth) the devil of any quarrel will he have with me. 
I never offended him in thought, word, or deed. But what will he 
gay to a gang of caballing priests, who, when they could never 
give a rational interpretation of their own balderdash themselves^ 
are for calling in the strong arm of the law to crush and destroy 
him who can do so, — a better scholar and an honester man than 
their holy church, throughout all the world, could ever boast of. 

1 say, it is the wine that puts God into good humour, or rather 
puts good humour into God, as in Judges, ix., 13, it is expressly 
said that ''Wine cheereth the heart of God and man.^^ And hence 
in the most beautiful analogy of the moral propriety, indicated by 
the physical phenomena of the Sun in the Scales of Justice, effusing 
the rich blood of the grape into the Cup of Salvation, should man 
learn, that when his own cup of blessedness is full, he should never 
forget to fill for his neighbour ; nor ever put the Cup of Salvation 
to his own lip, but to pledge in it his heart's forgivcnness, and 
remission, and absolution, and laying aside for ever of all notions 
of sin and damnation, and all their damnation cruelty against any 
body, or for any thing : and to be ready to say or sing, cither to 
Jew, Turk, Infidel, or heretic : 



230 THE devil's pulpit. 

" Then gie's a hand, my honest friend, 
And here's a hand for thine ; 
AVe'll tak' a cup of kindness yet, 
For auld lang syn 

Here, then, is the coDgruity, the connection, and^the moral solu- 
tion, of the physical problem, between the shedding of blood and 
the forgivenuess of sins. 

Wine, then, cheereth the heart both of God and man. An 
immaterial, incorporeal, or unsubstantive deity, is no deity at all. 
The sacred record of God's most holy word, of which, in all this 
priest-ridden and priest-insulted country, I alone am the faithful 
Minister and true Hierophant, knows nothing of such an hallucina- 
nation. It is a cheat, invented by the priests, to hide the truth ot 
nature, and to prevent rational man from becoming reasonable ; it 
is a dagger of the mind — a false creation — proceeding from the 
heat-oppressed brain ; and of which the brain, recovering itself 
from the fever of fanaticism to the health of reason, will dissipate 
the delusion at once. — ''There's no such a thing J^ 

But see now, after all the maddening nonsense of spirituality, 
and spiritually-pretended meanings, which are no meanings at all, 
how refreshing, how delightful, how beautiful is science. 

''The Cup of Salvation.'' Now, observe ye, sirs, the priest's 
position with relation to the position of that cup, upon that table ; 
of the reason of which, the priests themselves, our Protestant 
and Dissenterian priests, the most priestly of all priests that ever 
bepriested a priest-ridden people, are most profoundly ignorant. 

Those relative positions are the same to this day, in the admi- 
nistration of the Christian Sacrament, as they were through ante- 
rior ages of Pagan superstition, in the administration of bread and 
wine, to the honour of Ceres and Bacchus, in the Eleusinian mys- 
teries : and both Orgies bore the name, which the Christian Orgy, 
to this day, retains, " those holy mysteries.'^ The word holy is but 
a mock solemn utterance of the ancient 'Phoenician word, hely, 
fi'om whence was formed the Greek word, a' Helios — i. e. the Sun ; 
and from whence our whole family of English words, bequeathed 
to us by our Phoenician ancestors, as health, and healing ; and Eel, 
the fish ; and Hell, Hill, Hole, and Hull ; and the Heel of the 
human body, connected, as every shoemaker can tell you the Heel 
is, with the sole. 

The human family is to be distinguished from the family of 
the ouraDg-outang lady and gentleman, who have ktely come to 
see their cousins, the dandies, in Piccadilly, by the felicity of hav- 
ing a Heel : and so, I suppose, a Soul to their heels — Heel being 



THE devil's pulpit. 231 

the Greek, and Soul or Sol the Latin, for the Sun. As everything 
depends upon having a right understanding, so the Psalmist prays 
to God to forgive him the iniquity of his heels ; and Christ com- 
plains of Judas, '* He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his 
heel against me.'* 

And hence, your church and chapel arrangements of the para- 
phernalia, in these Hely mysteries, or mysteries of the Sun, have 
been always those of a camera obscura, or astronomical orrery ; ex- 
hibiting, in shadowy types upon that darkened table, the actual 
phoenomena of the heavenly bodies, as observed by the astronomi- 
cal priests, from their episcopal observatories, which are now called 
the Bishops' Sees, or look-outs, — the bishops always being upon the 
look-out. And you have the very earliest rule laid down for the 
building of a church or chapel, in Hebrews viii. 5 : — " See, saith 
he, that thou make ^1 things according to the pattern showed to 
thee in the Mount." 

And see, sirs, how accurately is that heavenly pattern copied in 
the arrangements of this heavenly table. 

The table must stand in the East, and this portion of Scripture, 
which I have read, appointed to be read for the Epistle, must be 
read by the priest standing on the south side of that table : it 
would have been blasphemy against the Heely Gust, to have read 
it on the north side : it is the gospel, and not the epistle, that is to 
be read on the north side of the table. Because — for what reason 
that your clergy can give you, none at all ! but, look at their book 
with your eyes open, in the 48th Psalm, and you have the because 
— because, " Upon the north side lieth the City of the Great King : 
God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge." Northward 
of the Equator stand the mansions of the Sun, in his reign through 
the summer months, beginning with March, and ending with Sep- 
tember ; but southward of the Equator, as j^ou see in this delinea- 
tion, stands the Cup of Salvation. And I, whom they brand as 
the Devil's Chaplain, for which I forgive them — and whom they 
seek to put into prison, for which, the Devil forgive them for me — 
am not only the most faithful minister of the gospel you ever heard 
in your lives, but the most orthodox. 

And, in reading this portion of Scripture, appointed for the 
epistle, with my foot standing on the south side of the table, I say 
with the Psalmist, in the 26th Psalm ; — " My foot standeth right; 
E will praise the Lord in the congregations ;" — that is, the Sun, in 
the congregations or groups of Stars that constitute the respective 
signs of the Zodiac : 

And were you dying with thirst, you might never take the Sa- 



232 THE devil's pulpit. 

erameutal Cup, before you had taken the Sacramental Bread ; 
because, 

Ceres comes before Bacchus ; the Mother before her Son ; the 
Lady before the Gentleman ; the Corn-harvest before the Vintage ; 
the Wheat of August before the Grapes of September. 

Aye, and of the latter end of September, too — that is, not till 
Michaelmas-day, the day of the Archangel Michaeh who holds up 
the Arch of Heaven, on the 29th of September, with the Scales in 
his hands, — the 29th of September beiog the Day of Judgment, 
the last day for gathering in of the last fruits of the cultivation ol 
the earth, of wJiich the allegorical apostle admonishes the farmers, 
the gardeners, and the vine-dressers; that, on that Day of Judg- 
ment, the Sun will render to every man according to his agricul- 
tural industiy ; •'•' and whatsoever a man sowe^i, that shall he also 
reap." And the necessity of being accurate, as to the precise day 
— that is, the Bay of Judgment, or of the Sun's coming to the line 
of the Equator, at the Autumnal Equinox — that is. the day of the 
Covenant, was beautifully indicated in the astronomical theorem ol 
the 31st of Job : " I have made a Covenant with mine eyes : why, 
then, should I think upon a maid ?*' that is, in the astronomical 
solution, I have ascertained by astronomical observation, that the 
Covenant, or the coming of the Sun to the point of the Autumnal 
Equinox, takes place in the Scales of September, and is therefore 
not to be anticipated or looked for in the Virgin of August. 

So, when the Virgin Mother, in the marriage at Cana, in Gali- 
lee, complains to her Son, the Bacchus of the Gospel, that '' they 
have no wine :" she receives that astronomical rebuke, " Woman, 
what have I to do with thee ? mine hour is not yet come," — of 
which the astronomical solution is, '• that the time for making wine 
is not in August, but at the latter end of September." '-And there 
were set there, six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the 
purifying cf the Jews " — that is, literally, of " the firing of the 
Iou-Dai-oi'' — i. e., the Sun's bringing in of his solar fire, into the 
six signs of the summer months, during which men must be content 
to drink water, because the time for turning water into wine is not 
till the latter end of September, just as the Sun is at the gate, 
going out, or just at that moment gone out, of the heavenly Jeru- 
salem. 

The Epistoler to the Hebrews still more accurately fixes the 
very day of the vintage, by reminding us, in Hebrews xiii. 12. that 
*•' Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his blood, suffered 
without the Gate*'' — that is, the day immediately after the Sun's 

* The Mount Calvary of the eartnly Jerusalem is, verv unfortu- 
mately, v:ithin the gate, in the centre of the city. 



THE devil's pulpit. 233 

having crossed the Equator, — in honour of which " suffering with- 
out the gate," our most orthodox Christian altar-pieces, represent 
Christ, not as directly upon the Cross, but, as taken down from tlie 
Cross. Now, where stands the Virgin Mother of the Son of God 
in your gospels but by the Cross of Christ? And where stands 
the Virgin of the Zodiac, but by the Cross which the Sun makes 
over the line of the Equator, at the Autumnal Equinox? And 
here have you the whole story of that marriage at Cana, as old as 
this arrangement of the starry heavens, ascending up to a date, 
not of hundreds merely, but of thousands of years before the pre- 
tended era of the birth of your Christian Christ. 

Here is the old maid herself, as fond of a drop of the Crater as 
any of us ; with her head, as you see, running on nothing but the 
Crater, which she has just been smelling, she turns away her head 
in disgust, because she finds it empty, and with her outstretched 
arm, in which is the bright star Vindemiatrix, that is to say, indi- 
cator of the approaching vintage, she seems in the act of saying, 
" They have no wineJ^ 

And observe, now, the positions of the heavenly bodies, at the 
moment when the stars in that outstretched arm peer above the 
edge of the lK)rizon, due East by North. 

And then read off the text, which I have read to you from 
sacred writ, and this astronomical text. 

Who are the Lords of the Ascendant, at that moment, for 
whose sake this ^' that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments 
from Bozrah? treadeth the wine-press alone, and of the people 
there is none with him." ? They are the children. Castor and Pol- 
lux, Gemini, the Twins of the Zodiac, " Children that will not lie,^^ 
and the only children that ever answered to the definition ; sure 
indicators, by their ascendancy in the zenith, of the rising up ot 
this outstretched arm of the Lord, which will bring on the Day ot 
Vengeance — that is, of Vine-geance, or of treading and trampling 
down the grapes in the wine-press, — called the agony, ^ in the Gar- 
den of Gethsemane, when the declining Sun sweats his blood out 
into the Cup of Salvation, — that day always being the day of the 
Sun's position in the line of the Equator, as the Sun comes to that 
position every autumn. 

" The point of the Autumnal Equinox being, as you see, paral- 
lel with that of tl¥3 Vernal Equinox, the Archangel Michael, or 
the Genius of Michaelmas-day, has his name of Michael, which 

* An Agony literally is a Wine-press : its application to a state of 
human suffering is metaphorical. Ft/igeance, ylr('7?ger, ]7/idication, are 
t<M^bDical to the business of the vintner, or ^^ine-malce^ 



234 THE DEYIL S PULPIT. 

Signifies Equal vnih God: Siud Jesus, that Just One, as he is called 
by the first Martyr, St. Stephen, the Corona Septentrionalis, — 
whose position, you see, is immediately over the Scales of Justice. 

And Enoch, that Just Man, who was translated, and " was not, 
because God took him " — that is, the Sun entering into the con- 
stellation, by his brighter effulgence rendered the Stars, which 
constitute this constellation, invisible — and Noah, that is Nock-ee: 
Enoch, written backwards, that Just Man, notwithstanding his. 
getting so gloriously drunk, are both said to walk with God. 

But how could any man walk with god — with their inde- 
finite, indescript, and indescribable God, their incomprehensible 
and infinite space-filling God? when (their) God caj^not walk 
HIMSELF? Why, to be sure, he would be at his Journey's end, 

BEFORE HE SET OUT. AnD AS HE FILLS ALL SPACE, HE MUST SIT 
STILL IN ALL SPACE, LIKE A GOUTY OLD MAN IN HIS ARM-CHAIR, 
AND STAY AT HOME THROUGH ALL ETERNITY.''"^ 

folly, folly ! where will thy foolishness end ? Into such mea- 
sureless absurdities will men run, when they are, as we see them, 
too ignorant to give a rational meaning of their own language 
to us, and too wicked to let us show the rational meaning of it to 
them. I 

But see, now, how, to all the definitions, even to the most ap- 
parently incongruous and contradictory, of this Sacramental Cup, 
answers this cup of the celestial sphere, as thus : 

1st. " It is the Cup of Salvation; you drink of it and are saved." 
Psalm cxvi. 13. Because it preserves the Sun's vital heat within 
you, without which you would go dead. 

2nd. It is the cup of damnation, — you drink of it, and 'be 
damned. Because, after the Sun has shed his precious blood into 
it, his reign in the summer months is over, and to Hell and Tommy 
he must go. 

3rd. It is the Cup of Consolation (Jeremiah xvi. 7), because 
it consoles us for the absence of the Sun, whose blood is poured 
into it. 

4th. It is the Cup of Trembling. Isaiah li. 22 As you see, 
it stands but on half its rim, on the slimy back of the Water Snake ; 
the most slippery position that could possibly be imagined ; as if to 
admonish us of that heaven-recorded moral : 

"There's many a slip, 
'Twixt the cup and the lip." 

5th. It is the Cup of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

* In the Indictment. 



I 



THE devil's pulpit. 235 

Because it is the concentrated essence, virtue, juice, and blood of 
the True Vine (John xv. 1), who is the Lord Jesus Christ. 

6th. It is the Cup of the fierceness of the fury, of the wrath 
of Almighty God. Kev. xiv. 10. Because the fiercer and the 
hotter is the Sun, the richer and the better is our wine. 

7th. It is the Cup, as you see, of the Pure Virgin of Bethle- 
hem. John ii. 3. 

8th. But look again, sirs : and forgive me ! It is the Cup of 
the Scarlet Lady of Babylon. Rev. xvii. 4."^ 

10th. *' This Cup is the New Testament in my blood,*' says 
the Bacchus of the gospel. Luke xxii. 20. As in his tipsy cha- 
racter, he speaks of the Cup being in the wine, instead of the wine 
being in the Cup. 

11th. It is the blood of the everlasting covenant. Heb. 12. 
Because the Covenant, or coming of the Sun, to the line of the 
Equator, indicates the time of the Autumnal Equinox, when the 
grapes are ripe for the vintage. 

12th. It is " the Cup of Blessing which we bless.'* 1. Cor. 
X. 16. " Because through eternal ages, men did pledge therein, 
Health and prosperity to all good men." 

13. It is the Cup of Abomination, and of all abominable 
things. (Rev.) Because the time for the filling of that Cup is the 
beginning of the fall of the year : the Ab-0me7i of the coming win- 
ter : and the croaking raven, rising South-east by East, immediately 
after that Cup, pecks the Snake's back, to make it drop and spill 
its precious content : when the Cup, setting West by South, yields 
the ascendancy to the infernal Serpent, who seems about to seize 
the Crown of Heaven, and to " the Scorpions, having stings in their 
tails," and to their King, the Royal Star, Antares, the Abandon, 
the King of the Bottomless Pit. 

Now, perpend ye, sirs, again ! Through ages of an indefinite 
antiquity, before our ridiculously pretended era of the birth ol 
Christ, our Pagan ancestors had been taught to believe that Mars, 
the God of battles, from whom our name of the month of March 
is derived, surnamed by the Greeks Ares, from which the Latins 
formed their name of the constellation, Aries, the Ram, had been 
drowned in this cup of Bacchus, indifferently called the Cup, the 
Crater, the bowl, the goblet, the barrel, the tun, the hogshead, or 
any thing, whose association is the idea of holding wine. 

* Mr. Taylor explained privately, to Gentlemen, the 9th. It is ** tlie 
Cup of Fornication ;" as it stands under the point of junction of the two 
pair of legs, the forks made by the crossing of the E(iiiator Uy tlic 

I<:(Iii)tic. 



236 THE devil's rULPIT. 

And he was drowned by the two brothers, the giants Othus and 
Ephialtes. 

The astronomical solution of that theological allegory, is clear 
as the day. 

But sensible men always knew what was meant by the ortho- 
doxy that forbad the appearance of Mars in the presence of Bac- 
chus. For if any hostile feeling against any man were found to 
obtrude itself at the festive board, 

"Or any care or grief remain, 
We'll drown it in the bowl." 

And this is the morality of Heaven itself. Sirs, here is the 
bowl, whose coming to the Zenith throws Aries West by North, 
below the Horizon. And here are the giants, at that moment 
rising East by North, laying their heads together. 

So, through infinite ages, was the harvest home, or gathering in 
of the last grapes of the vintage, celebrated by pantomimes and 
allegorical tragedies, similar to such as our sailors, to this day, per- 
form on ship-board, on passing the line. 

Allegorical tragedies were the first origins, not merely of our 
theatrical but of our pulpit performances. And' tragical, indeed, 
have they proved to human happiness, ever since the Hupo-Krites 
— that is, the hypocrites (and never was there ^ priest on earth, but 
who was a hypocrite) have been for making us pay for their per- 
formances, and sending us to prison, for finding out the meaning 
of them. 

The name of the Tragedy is precisely the same as the name of 
the Gospel ; the one Tpayn *^67], literally signifying the Ode, 
spell, or bringing down of the Goat, when Capricornus, the Goat 
with the Fish's tail, was the sign of the summer solstice, as the 
Crab now is ; and, therefore, must be brought down to the Western 
Horizon, to bring the Sun to the zenith^ when in the Scales of 
September. 

The God'spel, or Spell, or incantation of the Lamb of God, 
in precisely the same astronomy, brings the Lamb into the lowest 
Fit of Hell. You have, consequently, the Sun in the latter end of 
4utumn, personated as Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

"And being in an Agony" ev ayG)via, says St. Luke — that is, 
iterally, in a Wine-press, his sweat was as great drops of blood, G)aei 
dpofi^OL acfxarog, falling to the ground, a bloody sweat ! hideous in 
imagination, and impossible in nature ; but the very technical lan- 
guage itself of the process of wine making, that word ^po/zfoi, 



THE devil's pulpit. 23t 

translated great drops, being nothing else than a syncopation of the 
word Thriambus, a well known appellative of the God Bacchus. 

" And there appeared unto him an angel, strengthening him." 
What angel could that be, but the angel of Michaelmas-day, the 
Archangel Michael ? " Strengthening him" — that is, making him 
strong by putting more grapes into the Agony, to make it sweat 
more than ever. 

But, " when he had tasted'the vinegar, he said, " It is finished,'' 
— that is, when the great drops had left off falling, and only the 
thin and sour wine that is pressed out of the mere stalks and skins, 
could be drawn off, he said, " The business is all over." 

And thus we can tell the Clergy, that " we know that this record 
is true," as we can tell them, that we know their record is not true. 

Ours is the seat of everlasting curiosity, indefatigable research, 
and still increasing knowledge. Our hearts are too full of the love 
of science, to leave a vacuity for the harbouring of bad passions. 
We have none. We have not time or leisure to be wicked. 

" Where science dwells, the Muses join their train, • 
And gentlest arts and purest manners reign." 

Thus deal we with our priestly fables, of both the Old and the 
New Testaments, while our priests answer us in the only way that 
is left for them to answer, that, of their power ; their tyrannous, 
oppressive, and wicked power. 

They can drag us to the bar of felony and crime ; and they have 
done so. 

They can subject us to be insulted by the mock solemnity and 
pompous shaking of a lawyer's wig upon a barber's block : and 
they will do so. 

They can turn on us again the dreadful clanging bolts and bars 
of their Oakham Jail. I call on you, sirs, to help to save me from 
them, and to check the triumph of barbarous ignorance over 
persecuted philosophy. 



END OP THE CUP OP SALVATION 



THl DEVIL'S PILPIT. 



*-AXD A BOXXIE PULPIT IT IS."— -l/Za/z Cunningham. 



LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 

PART I. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHXESS'S CHAPLAIX, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, APRIL 10, 1831. 

" He that despised Moses' Law, died without mercy under two or 
three witnesses^ Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, 
shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the 
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, where- 
with he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done de'^ 
pite unto the Spirit of grace ? For we know him that hath said. 
'Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense,^' saith the 
Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fear* 
ful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." — he- 
brews, X, 28 — 30. 

The epistle to the Hebrews is, as I shall prove, the composition 
of some Eoyal Arch Mason, TeiliDg* the mysteries of the masonic 
craft, under a sort of language whose sense and purpose has es- 
caped, and been intended to escape, the penetration of ail but the 
Free Masons of the Hebraic degree, to whom it is addressed : and 
will therefore supply the text of this, and of the whole course of the 
lectures I have proposed to deliver : in which I shall, with "confir- 
mation strong as proof of holy wit,'' expose to the whole world the 
Pretended Secret of Free Masonry ; and discover, to Masons them- 
selves, that whereby, when they shall come to read, ''they shall 
understand my knoivledge of the mystery o/" their craft. 

The words of the text are dreadful, and terribly frightful ! and, 
read as they may be, (and as I have heard them), in a crackt-bell 
sepulchral tone of voice, their terror doth unnerve the faculty of 



THE devil's pulpit. 239 

reason in man ; and many, many a good and innocent mind, throw- 
ing the reins up upon the neck of imagination, hath been borne 
away into reckless despair, or incurable insanity. 

Our madhouses are filled with miserable wretches, who, apply- 
ing this text to themselves, have imagined that tbey have commit- 
ted the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost ; that they have, 
in the grossest sense, ^^trodden under foot the Son of God, and done 
despite unto the Spirit of grace ." A mere vicissitude in the state 
of their animal spirits ; the subsiding of the high fever of fanaticism, 
when, in their insane language, they were illuminated, and had tas- 
ted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world 
to come," (Hebrews, vi. 5.) into the sober November, of that de- 
bility which necessarily follows a fever, is evidence enough to them, 
of their unpardonable gift : the wound is given, that never can be 
healed, — the sorrow conceived, that never can be comforted : while 
villains of harder nerve, though not of stronger intellect, in their 
luck of being able to brave its terror for themselves, by making sure 
of their own salvation, play the priest with it, in turn, upon others, 
and gratify the worst feelings of a malignant heart by applying it, 
in imagination, to any object of their religious aversion. 

Bat let a man, rise up in an age, possessing learning enough to 
know the meaning of the text, and with that learning, generosity 
enough to communicate his knowledge, and thus to break the spell 
of priestcraft, to restore distracted minds to the health of reason, 
to soften stony hearts into the flesh of human gentleness and love : 
the priests are all on the shiver and the shake for the safety of their 
craft, — they are ready to set all Bedlam loose, to tear him to 
pieces ; their patients are taught to look on him as their enemy ; 
imagination invests him with the character of an emissary of Sa- 
tan, the embassador of Hell, the Devil's Chaplain : the very walls, 
the mere brick and mortar of the building, within which the voice 
of reason is to be heard, get a bad name : and the evangelical idiots 
that would block the streets up to get a glimpse of a rational man, 
in Silver-street Chapel, dared not, for their salvation, trust them- 
selves within the doors of the Rotunda. And priests, of all deno- 
minations, in this metropolis, have the modesty to warn and dehort, 
and admonish their choused hearers not, for any consideration 
whatever, to trust themselves to enter that horrible Kotuiulu. 
*' Why, who preaches there?" the Devil's Chaplain. If once you 
go and hear him, your soul is lost for ever. He is inspired by the 
Devil. Witchcraft composes his discourses, a power of fascination 
rides upon his sentences, and Hell itself lets down the sledge-liam 
mer of conviction upon his periods. Your only safe policy is !-) 



240 THE devil's pulpit. 

keep away from tlie Rotunda : if you go there, you'll become ratio- 
nal, at]d then they lose your custom for ever. Only put forth your 
hand, and pluck and eat of the apples of Paradise, and the devil 
a tooth will you have left for any more of the crabs of the wilder- 
ness. As, for instance, see the way that we have, in the passage I 
have read to you. A merciless, horrible bit of business as it is. 
But 

Who wrote it? How? 

Who said it ? Whom does it concern ? 

Who did it ? To whom was it addressed? 

When ? What does it mean ? and 

Where? What business is it of ours? 

These are questions which every sensible man would ask on any 
other subject, in which he was, or might suppose himself to be, 
interested ; and without the most perfect and satisfactory solution 
of which, a rational man would no more suffer himself to be frigh- 
tened, at the big words of it, than a sensible cock-sparrow would 
at the clapper in a cherry tree. 

To be sure, Jack Straw looks develish savage, and when the 
Holy Ghost blows his clapper round a little faster than usual, it 
makes a great noise ; but let us venture once to perch on him, and 
we shall sing, ^^ Cherry ripe, cherry ripe, [Singing), ripe, ripe, ripe," 
and when the cherries are ripe, it is not the parson's clapper, nor 
bis devil either, that shall hinder the clever birds from helping 
themselves to them. 

" Thus then, to all this much-a-do about "dying without mer- 
cy," and "sorer punis-hment " still, than "dying without mercy,'* 
this "trampling under foot the Son of God :" this "sanctified bloody 
covenant :" this "unholy spiteful Spirit of grace :" this "vengeance 
and judgment :" and "frightful falling into the hands of the living 
God." Reason answers at once :" Shall I be frightened when a 
madman stares V 

" But we may find, perhaps, that there is a method in this mad- 
ness. But if there be ! — method is a thing of which reason, and 
reason only, can judge : and they who were conscious that what 
they put forth would bear the scrutiny and trutination of reason, 
would never be afraid of looking at both scales, nor shrink from 
that calm and indifferent comparison of what may be urged on both 
sides, which it was never anything else but madness or villany thai 
was afraid of. 

First, then, who was the author or writer of this epistle to the 
Hebrews, as it is called ? 

In the Greek manuscripts, and in all authentic translations from 
the Greek it is perfectly anonymus. It is called only HTrpo^ 



THE devil's pulpit. 241 

E^pacHg ETT^trroA?/, the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is not known 
by whom it was written, nor is there a single passage in it, from 
beginning to end, to glance a probability as to who the writer was. 
It is only guess-work, supposition and imagination, that has 
ascribed it to the apostolic chief of sinners, Saint Paul ; and, upon 
this mere guess, many of our English Bibles and Testaments entitle 
it, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews,^^ notwithstand- 
ing the flat contradiction of the subscription that states, at the 
end of it, that it was written by Timothy — i. e. Written to the He- 
brews, from Italy, by Timothy. 

In Dr. Lardner's table of the Books of the New Testament, 
this book of the Epistle to the Hebrews is classed under the head of 
Disputed Books : of which definition, he defines, that it is one ot 
those, which should be allowed to be read in Christian assemblies, 
for the edification of the people, but not to be alleged as affording 
alone sufficient proof of any doctrine. ^^ — that is, as I understand 
the definition : it will do to be read in Christian assemblies, where 
any thing will do — for the edification of the people- — that is, as I 
understand it, the building them up, like blockheads, stocks, and 
stones, into pedestals, for priests to play the God on. 

The time at which Dr. Lardner, the highest authority in the 
judgment of Christians that could possibly be quoted, supposes or 
guesses (for it is all guess-work) that this epistle might have been 
written, is the spring of the year of our era, 63. As I (with as 
good a right, and better reason for guessing, than Dr. Lardner) 
should guess, that it might have been written in the autumn of the 
year, sixty-three thousand years before our era. 

My reason for guessing that it was written in autumn, being 
the strong symptoms that the epistle itself contains, of having been 
written when wine was cheap, and when he who was so anxious to 
edify others, was pretty well headi^Qdi himself; and I guess it to 
have been written so many ages ago, in honour to humanity, which 
should but ill brook the affront of supposing that such stuff, as 
this epistle consists of, could have possibly come into respect ability j 
after mankind had acquired the faculty of reason. 

At the same time, I have no quarrel against the guess of any 
other person who might guess, with equal force of presumptive 
evidence, that it was written yesterday afternoon at four o'clock ; 
as he might urge, that it begins with the express date : *' In these 
last days,'^ and it is certain that none other than yesterday, and 
the day before, were these last days ; and it ends in the last chap- 
ter, with an equally explicit indication of date, that we should 
consider the end of the conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yester- 
day, 

11 



242 THE devil's pulpit. 

The result ot all the guessing, and of all the critical research 
and learning in the world, throwing us up this melancholy fact, that 
mankind have been frightened out of their wits ; and our mad- 
houses have been filled, and our churches and chapels, which are 
but half-way houses to the madhouses, crowded, by persons who 
have believed that themselves or others had trodden under foot tho 
Son of God, and all the rest of this hideous orgy, upon the author- 
ity of some scratchings and scramblings on an old goat-skin 
scratched by the nails of some drunken Bachanal, of whom nobody 
can guess who he was, between Jack Sprat, or Jack-anij-body, and 
nobody can guess ivhen, within any thousand, or two, or three 
thousand years ago. The rule with Christians, being invariably 
this, that the less they know about any thing, the wiser they take 
themselves to be : and the more profoundly ignorant, the niore 
fervently religious. 

The meaning of a thing was always that part of it which a 
Christian never wished to know any thing about. 

But, granting what no longer can be denied among men of learn- 
ing, that the Epistle to the Hebrews is anonymous and dateless. 
It is not known by whom, or when, it was written : yet it was 
wi'itten to somebody, or some community of persons. And our 
want of the light of date, and name, may be supplied by the light 
reflected from the implied character of the persons, or community 
of persons, to whom it purports to be addressed. 

It is called, at any rate, the Epistle to the Hebrews. The He- 
brews ! Then who are, or were, or what is or was meant by, the 
Hebrews ? Xow, Sirs, do I put it to your own authority of judg- 
ing, to judge, who is the scholar, and worthy to be revered as a 
teacher, having something that he can teach, and you can learn, — 
I, who can teach and tell you who the Hebrews are, and what the 
meaning of this Epistle to the Hebrews is ; or your spiritual pas- 
tors and masters who cannot, and wllo, as they are profoundly 
ignorant themselves, have no protection for their monopoly, but 
the trick of suppressing curiosity, and warning you not to go to 
the Eotuuda, for fear you should find out, by your own improve- 
ment, what a state of bocbyism and ignorance they would have 
kept you in ! 

The Hebrews, thQ Jewish nation, you have been taught to believe 
the descendants of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, — 
a national and political people, such as the French, Dutch, Poles, 
Russians, among ourselves, — a people that had once a political con- 
stitution, — King, Lords, Commons, and Boroughmongers of tht^ir 
own. The immediate ancestors of the lono^-armed and blue- faced 



THE devil's pulpit. 243 

gentlemen of the menagerie, whose existence, to this day, is a stand- 
ing proof of the truth of divine revelation, suppose ye ? 

Aye, aye ! It will do, ye see, for a lecture on the Evidences of 
the Christian religion, where the lecturer dare not suffer himself to 
be questioned, even in the most respectful and courteous manner in 
which an inquirer after truth could question the professed teacher 
of it. * ^ 

But it would not do to abide the questions, where 7 in what 
monument of past existence ? in what document, line, word, or 
vestige of history ? by which alone we can know any thing of what 
has been going on in the world before we came into it ; have we a 
vestige of the existence of a Hebrew nation ? That question can 
be answered only in the most decisive, the most unequivocal nega- 
tion that ever truth threw up in solution of any inquiry whatever. 
No WHERE, in all the world, no where: in no era of time, in no 
slate, or stone, or skin, or papyrus, or paper — in nothing that ever 
was plastered by the trowel, scratched by the style, graven by the 
chisel, or written by the pen of the human hand, hath the world 
ever possessed a scratch of a scrabblement that recognised the ex- 
istence of a Hebrew nation. " A holy nation, a peculiar people, a 
royal priesthood ;" their only scriptural definition is a definition 
that expressly bars off, and excludes any sense or understanding of 
their ever having existed as a political body, or ordinary people, in 
the national sense. 

But this Epistle to the Hebrews, anonymous as it is, yet of high 
antiquity, as in all soberness and truth it must be admitted to be, 
is proof that there were persons, or a community of persons, called 
the Hebrews. Yes ; and so are there, and so has there been, since 
the building of Solomon's Temple, persons, and communities of 
persons, called Free Masons ; persons corresponding with each other 
by means of secret symbols, and held together in a mystical corpo- 
ration, governed by law and officers of their own — recognizing 
each other by certain winks of the eye, positions of the foot, ioU- 
ings of the tongue within the cheek, gripes of the hand, and in- 
dentations of the thumb upon the wrist ; which, escaping the no- 
tice of persons not informed in the craft, easily discover those who 
are initiated, to each other. 

And thus, many a man is asked whether he is a mason, and what 
degree he has attained in the masonic mysteries, by these dumb 
Bigns, and pantomimic actions, which no eye nor car of any third 
person can possibly perceive. The first or the second summons 
being misunderstood, or unheeded, a third and fourth of higher 
autlinrity, and of more imperative mystery communicated only to 
the higher graduatea of the craft, enables them to boa^t with truth, 



244 THE devil's pulpit. 

that whatever mistakes may occur in this way among their inferior 
orders, the higher dignities, the 'Et^pacot the aderjOoL aycoi, or holy 
brethren, can recognise each other with infallible accuracy, what- 
ever countries they may be born in, whatever language they may 
speak, all over the world, and through all eras of time. 

By these symbols, of higher authority than the common claims 
of humanity, and the ordinary obligations of charity in man to 
man, they can demand and receive assistance from each other, in 
all their distresses and inconveniences : and each good mason will 
fly to the relief of his brother mason, as an obedient son to the 
command of an affectionate father, as the right hand of one's own 
body will come up to the assistance of the left ; and that, without 
any regard of the country, age, condition, character, or religion, of 
the mason, who has thus need to be assisted, but solely and exclu- 
sively in virtue of the consideration, that he is a mason. 

The moral uses, and the moral fitness and propriety of such an 
institution, if ever there were a fitness and propriety in it, must ne- 
cessarily be diminished, and the institution itself grow into desue- 
tude and neglect ; as every good mason is bound to wish and desire 
that it should do, in proportion as its end is achieved, and its prin- 
ciples diffused, by the diffusion of civilization ; and, consequently, 
of universal benevolence among men, when the whole world shall 
become one great lodge of Free Masons, — when the Secret of the 
Lord shall be discovered to every individual on whom the Sun doth 
shine. As it exists at the present day, it is a slander upon reason, 
and a disgrace to humanity. Boys, and lubberly garsoons in a 
drunken frolic, and for the mere joke of the thing, may have been 
betrayed into the first ceremonies of the idolish mummery: but sure 
I am, that there is not a sensible and honest man on earth, who, 
when reminded of such a proof of his boyish folly, as his having 
become a mason, will not hang his head and own himself ashamed 
of it. A Free Mason is another name for a fool professed. 

But, in earlier days, through the days of an infinitely remote 
antiquity, such an institution as that of masonry, as it had its ne- 
cessity, had its sanctity, its right, its justice, its utility, in that 
need, which those of the human race who first emerged from the 
state of barbareous ignorance into reason, intelligence, and science, 
had to protect themselves from the incursions of the monkeys, ba- 
boons, and wildmen of the woods, with whom the conflict was 
continually the struggle of wit against brute force, and who 
were only to be kept aloof by stratagem, overawed by mys- 
tery, and ruled by terror. To keep off these, it was always the first 
care of a master mason to see " the lodge properly tiled." Grada- 
ti.)ns of mystery, and trials of the strength of understandiug, of 



THE devil's pulpit. 245 

those whose curiosity urged them to wish to penetrate into the 
arcana of masonry, were absolutely necessary to protect the cradle 
of infant science from the incursion of the wolves of the wilderness, 
and the same law of nature, by which man feels that more is due 
to man from man, than from man to the inferior animals, both jus- 
tified and authorized, that esprit du corps which attached the ma- 
son to his brother mason, as man more properly to his brother man, 
— his brother i^ the possession of a rational nature, and in that 
sympathy of desire to enlarge his faculties and to cultivate his rea- 
son ; which he who hath not, though he may be the best Christian 
that ever breathed, is but a monkey still. 

The celebrated Chevalier Ramsay has laboured to prove, that 
Free Masonry arose during the Crusades, and was only a secondary 
order of chivalry : the learned Abbe Barruel supposes it to be a 
continuation of the Society of Knights Templars ; while Clinch 
and others deduce its origin from the Institution of Pythagoras. — 
In the course of these Lectures, however, with the aid of further 
discoveries, brighter lights, and juster principles of critical research, 
than have heretofore been brought to bear on this curious subject, 
— I pledge myself to let the cat-out-of'the-hag ; to leave no part of 
the mysterious secret unexposed ; but to flash resistless conviction 
on the minds of Masons themselves, that they are absolved from 
their oath of secrecy, in that they know nothing that we do not 
know as well as they, and that they have nothing left, either to 
conceal or to betray. 

I shall prove Free Masonry to be the combined result of the 
Egyptian, Jewish, and Christian superstitions, and absolutely iden- 
tical with the celebrated Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece, the Dio- 
njsian Mysteries, or orgies of Bacchus, and the Christian Myste- 
nes of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, which are 
absolutely not more different in any respect from e^ch other, than 
the customs and forms of any Lodge of Free Masons in p]ngland, 
may be, from those of a Lodge in any of the nations of the Conti- 
nent ; where, though the language, the words, the persons, and the 
paraphernalia, may be varied, the spirit and the purport of the 
mysteries is precisely the same. 

On the evidence hereafter to be adduced, no one shall be able to 
doubt that the Eleusinian and Dionysian Mysteries, modelled as 
they were, upon the Mysteries of Isis, and Osiris, of Egypt, have 
passed over into the mysteries of the craft of Free Masonry ; atid 
that they wei e formed at first for scientific purposes, though subse- 
quently made the vehicle of the doctrines of the Egyptian mytho* 
logy. 

'i'hose who wore iuitiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, wcro 



240 THE devil's pulpit. 

bound by tbe most awful engagements to conceal the instructions 
they received and the ceremonies that were performed. None 
were admitted as candidates till they arrived at a certain age, and 
particular persons were appointed to examine and prepare them 
for the rites of initiation. Those whose conduct was found irregu- 
lar, were rejected, as unwoj-thy of initiation: significant words 
were communicated to the members, such as the Giblum or Chib- 
belum, Mo-A^bon and Begulgal, in modern masonry. Grand 
officers presided over their assemblies. Their emblems were exactly 
similar to those of Free Masonry, and the candidate advanced from 
one degree to another, till he received all the lessons of what they 
called wisdom and virtue which the priest could impart. 

The terms, Jews, Israelites, and Hebrews, were designations of 
those who had passed on to the highest dignities in these holy 
mysteries. And hence, this Epistle to the Hebrews, literally is, an 
Epistle to the Free Masons — that is, to the higher order of the ini- 
tiated in the craft of the mysteries, " the free and accepted ma- 
sons ;" who, if Christians would but read their book with a mind 
to observe what it is that they do read (which they never do), they 
would see that the Hebrews, and this Epistle to the Hebrevv^s, is not 
addressed to any national community, but to a mystical and reli- 
gious fraternity only, whose members might consist as societies of 
Free Masons may, of men of any and of every country, nation, 
and language upon earth, as " there were dwelling at Jerusalem, 
Jews, devout men of every nation under Heaven.^^ 

The patriarch Abraham, is called '* Abraham the Hebrew," not 
in designation of his country, but of his college-degree, the rank 
he had attained in these mysterious dignities. Abraham was a 
Free Mason. 

If you will only look into the order of the arrangement of the 
books of the New Testament, you will see, that the Epistle to the 
Hebrews is not arranged with the Epistle to the Eomans, the Co- 
rinthians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, &c., which designated 
the Christians inhabiting Rome, Corinth, Colosse, Thessalonica, 
and so on. But it is set apart by itself, coming after all the Epis- 
tles that were addressed to particular communities, or particular 
persons ; and constituting therefore, no epistle, properly so speak- 
ing, but a general discourse, the meaning of which would only be 
understood by that higher order of Free Masons, who, though they 
are neither called Free Masons, nor Hebrews, in any part of the 
discourse itself, are addressed by a title which signifies the same 
thing as Free Masons — that is, " Holij Brethren, partakers of the 
heavenly calling,'' — that is, " Fellow-craft free-masons." 

The initiated in the Diouysian Mysteries of Bacchus, who were 



THE devil's pulpit. 24*1 

exclusively the ^^ partakers of the heavenly calling,^^ possessed the 
exclusive privilege of building temples and theatres in Asia Minor. 
They were incorporated at Teos, by the kings of Pergamos, and 
were actually subdivided into different lodges, as the Free Masons 
are with us at this day. 

And, as our Free Masons of the present day are only masons 
in a figurative sense, and those who are the Hebrews, or have at- 
tained the highest degree among them, could no more lay a brick 
in mortar, or mount the ladder with the hod on their shoulders, 
than they could dance the tight rope ; but are perfectly satisfied 
with being masons of the silk apron, and the silver trowels, — so 
the masonic character of this Epistle to the Hebrews, is indicated to 
absolute demonstration, by the masonic metaphors and figures of 
speech mixed up with the Bacchanalian tropes and allegories, 
which constitute the subject-matter of the piece. 

" For every house,'' says the master of the lodge, " is built by 
some (mason), but he that built all things, is God." Thus, in the 
full vanity of the masonic spirit, attempting to prove that God 
himself was a Free Mason : while Free Mason Abraham " looked 
for a city, which had foundations, whose builder and maker is 
God." 

That these Free Masons — that is, the higher grades of them, 
the Hebrews, understood what was meant by Moses, and Christ, 
and Christianity, to a very different tune from any with which our 
clergy have kept in concert, is betrayed, by that curious exhorta- 
tion which opens the 6th chapter, in which the apostle calls on his 
Free Masons to leave the Doctrine of Christ, which I, as earnestly 
as the apostle, do most sincerely call on you to do. You cannot 
leave it too soon : the sooner you have done with the doctrine of 
Christ altogether, the better. For, as the apostle truly says, it is" 
baby's meat, it is mere milk, and lollypop for the nursery, — a sen- 
sible man ought to be ashamed of it. 

'' Therefore leaving the doctrine of Christ," and all such like 
milk-and-water spoon-meat for fools, let us go mto perfection, as 
" Free and accepted Masons." *' To the praise and glory of his 
grace, wherein he hath made ks accepted in the beloved." 1 Ephes. 
6. ^' Wherefore we labour,'' says the apostle, that ^^whether present 
or absent, we may be accepted of him. " Thus most accurately 
defining the meaning of the word Hebrew to be none other than 
precisely that which obtains, at our masonic lodges to this day, a 
free and an accepted Mason, as the word Hebrew, in the first oi 
all documents in which it is found (Genesis xiv. 13), literally signi- 
fies, •^'i^s^n, h TTeparTjgj one who has passed over, or through the 
lower degrees. 



248 THE devil's pulpit, 

The earliest appearance of Free Masonry, in modern times, 
was nothing else than a revival of the mystical fraternity of the 
Dionysian Mysteries, which had, for countless ages, subdued the 
reason, and repelled the curiosity of mankind. It appeared in the 
form of a travelling association of Italian, Greek, French, Ger* 
man, and Flemish artists, who were denominated Free Masons, and 
who went about erecting churches and cathedrals, as they acquired 
renown, and their renown called them into employment in the way 
of their trade throughout Europe. 

But this hinders nothing of the force of our evidence of the 
anterior existence of their craft, betrayed to us in the most mysti- 
cal parts of the language of the New Testament (quite mystical 
enough), and confirmed by the coincidence of Pagan and classical 
evidence, quite as accessible to the general scholar, and a good deal 
more so, than to the novitiate at a modern masonic lodge. 

But the essential connection of convivial purposes, and good 
carousing, with the most mysterious solemnities of masonry identi- 
fies the institution, beyond the emergence of a doubt, with all the 
ends and purposes of the mysterious orgies of the jolly God : and 
the trick of speaking in a Fee-faw-Ji-F utsi sort of a way, of what 
was really a very simple affair, and rendering the most ordinary 
and innocent act of eating your supper, and washing it down with 
a comfortable swig of good wine afterwards, — a mighty-to-do, to 
frighten women and children, was the pith of the secret of Free 
Masonry, which the women never found out, — not because they 
could not have found it out, but because, strong as their curiosity 
was, their superstition was stronger. And it was never a dis- 
covery which anybody was ever very proud of discovering, to dis- 
cover how greatly he had been befooled, and how easily it was 
done. 

For very mortification, he who had been drawn in himself, 
would lend his hand to draw in others, and from having been the 
dupe, would become, in turn, the agent of imposture. The Fox 
who had lost his tail, you know. 

The mysteries of Free Masonry are identically the same as 
those of the Dyonisia, or Mysteries of Bacchus ; and, consequently, 
an uncovering and exposure of these mysteries, will be an exposure 
of all the secret of mystery that is, or ever was, in the masonic 
craft. And that masonry, correctly understood, is the combined 
result of the ancient Egyptian, and Jewish, and Christian religions, 
you will learn, from demonstrations to be adduced, in the due order 
and succession of these lectures. 

From the present, 'tis matter worthy of your attention to carry 
home the correction of the general error, which supposes, that 



THE devil's pulpit. 249 

there ever was a Hebrew nation, or a temporal Kingdom of Jews, 
Israelites, or Christians. These, being, not political, or national, 
but entirely mystical and masonic terms,--«iiames of the different 
degrees of gradation in the masonic craft, that temple of Solomon, 
*Hn which ye also, as spiritual stones, are builded together, for an 
habitation of God through the Spirit.''^ 

In which series, the Christian is the lowest, the Israelite next 
the Jew next, the Hebrew next, and so on, up through the grada 
tions of those who, having passed " the middle \uall of partition,' 
and been admitted within the Yeil, are called Hebrews of the He 
brews, to martyrs or witnesses, autops or seers, prophets or tellers, 
saints, apostles, — ^^ Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.'* 

As you see, in the 18th of Acts of the Apostles that Apollos 
was a Jew, though born at Alexandria, in Egypt, an eloquent 
man, and mighty in the scriptures. But Paul, who was a Jew, 
though born at Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, was a Hebrew, as well as 
a Jew, — the higher dignity always including the lower. And 
Paul, the Hebrew, therefore took Apollos, the Jew, and expounded 
to him the way of God more perfectly.^* Hiough Paul himself had 
not reached the still higher degree of a Te?ietog, or perfect one, but 
was proceeding through his degrees, following after, as he drolly 
describes it, " that he might apprehend that for which also he was 
apprehended of Christ Jesus" Philip, iii. 12. 



END OF THE FIRST LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 



11* 



THE liVIL'S PULPIT. 



'AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS:'— Allan Cunningham. 



LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 
PART n. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE EEV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, APRIL It, 1831. 

*' For if the blood of bulls and of Goats, and the ashes of an heifer 
sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh : 
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the 
Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge 
your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. And 
for this cause, he is the Mediator of the Nevj Testament, that 
by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that 
were under the first testament, they which are called might 
receive the promise of eternal inheritance.'^ — Hebrews ix. 
13—15. 



The passage, in any sense which our Christian clergy can put 
upon it, is the language of slobbering idiotcy, or of stark-staring 
madness. I defy the ingenuity of man to look on it with the eye 
of criticism, or to hear it with the ear of intelligence, and not feel 
unspeakably disgusted at it. Bulls' Blood and Goats' Blood, and 
Ashes, sprinkling, cleansing, purging, dead ivorks, and living 
Gods : and then, the Mediator of the New Testament, redeeming 
or getting the transgressions that were under the old one out of 
pawn, and this in. 

He Brews nine, 15. Then he brews very intoxicating liquor : 
for sure,*there never was any doctrine in the world that could more 
tend to owv [headification) edification. Goat's blood and bull's 
blood, and what not 7 mixed up with ashes, for a man to wash his 
hands and face iu, for the purifying of his flesh : and then, you 



THE DE7IL's pulpit. 251 

know, with all the — all the — what is more easy to be smelled than 
mentioned, with all his blushing honours thick upon him, to stand 
before God for a sweet smelling savour. My God, if it isn't the 
most knock-me-down doctrine that ever was. Think you, bat see 
the nasty stinking saints, where 

*' Lo ! round the throne, at God's right hand 
The Saints in countless myriads stand ; 
Of every tongue redeemed to God, 
Arrayed in garments washed in blood." 

And can you resist the idea, of what a slaughter-house sort 
of a smell there must be, about the throne of God ? or can you 
wonder, that the ladies should always carry a little bottle of aro- 
matic vinegar to church or chapel, together with their Bibles and 
prayer-books, as a sort of Companion to the Altar, to help to sweeten 
their imaginations ? 

Or can the learned in ancient history, with the light which this 
sort of language, ascribes to divine inspiration, as it is, by the 
whole Christian world, upbraid the ignorance and barbarity of 
their Pagan ancestors, who, in the sacred ceremony of the Tauri- 
bolia, in order to ensure their sanctification, put themselves into a 
sort of sawpit, and boards being laid over the pit, full of holes, an 
ox or bull was slaughtered upon the boards, in order that every- 
thing that might run from the body of the animal might run upon 
them ; and with which, being most plentifully be-smeared, and be- 
greased, aiid be-graeed, and be-sprinkled, the Lord's anointed ones 
came forth, believing themselves to be regenerated, as from " a 
death unto sin, unto a new birth unto righteousness : for being by 
nature, born in sin, the children of wrath, they were hereby made 
the children of grace :" and sweet children the children of grace 
must have been. 

And if this pepper-bo:?^ way of sanctification, this letting it 
drop through holes in the cullender upon the body of the saint in 
the sawpit, which we so justly execrate, and reprobate, and shud- 
der at, in the Pagan Tauriboiium, was nothing like anything that 
was meant in the pure doctrines of our most holy faith ; how awk- 
ward 'tis, that the pure doctrines of our most holy faith should 
have been handed down to us in none other than such oratorical 
metaphorical, and allegorical figures of speech, as could have de- 
rived their origin from none other source than those execrable Tau- 
ribolia. 

Why, too, are ivc taught to look for our salvation to the blood 
sprinkling, and told expressly by the apostle to the Hebrews, that 
tht^ blood of sprvMnig speaketh better things than the blood of 



252 THE devil's pulpit. 



a 



Abel. (Heb. xii.) Blood that can talk! Eternal God! and is it 
possible that the apostle is actually making puns for us ; and that 
by the blood of Abel, he means nothiog more than the blood of a 
Bull ? By the holy Peter we are told that our sanctification ot 
the spirit must be " unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood 
of Jesus Christ :" which sprinkling can nowhere be so conveniently 
administered as by our going into the holy place. And our hearts 
are not said to be cleansed, or washed, but sprinkled fi'om an evil 
conscience, and afterwards our bodies washed with pure water, as 
God-a-mighty knows, after such a nasty process, a little clean wa- 
ter must be very refreshing. 

These jEgiboUa, Goat sacrifices, or Tatikibolia, Bull sacri- 
fices, as they are called, were parts of the mysteries of the more 
ancient Free Masonry. They were renewed every twenty years, 
when the penances of the noviciate were again renewed, and not 
fewer than eighty kinds were gone through before the apprentice 
mason could attain the degree of a Teyetog, or the highest degree 
in these masonic mysteries. 

The Sovereign Pontiff, the " thrice puissant, illustrious, respect- 
able, and worshipful " high priest, himself descended into the saw- 
pit, which in this Epistle to the Hebrews is called the Holy Place, 
invested with all the emblems of royalty ; and the vestments which 
he had worn, the garments washed in blood, excited the most pro- 
found veneration ; they were accounted to increase in holiness (as 
it is most probable they did) in proportion as they became more 
ragged : the more they stank, the sweeter they were held to be ; 
and when they would no longer hang together, they were placed, 
on a column of the temple. 

The seven successive Christian Emperors, from Oonstantine to 
Gratian, wore, and were proud to wear, the pontifical "garments 
washed in blood." The Emperor Gratian, 383 years after our An- 
nus Domini (that is, not till after the middle of the fourth cen- 
tury) , was the first Christian Emperor who threw off the badges 
of Paganism, or found out that there was any such difference be- 
tween Paganism and Christianism, as that a man might not be 
both Pagan and Christian at the same time. 

Our kings and emperors, however, of the present day (God take 
'em all to his mercy) have been less punctilious ; and a George the 
Fourth, a Duke of York, and the Duke of Sussex, for their own 
imperial, royal, and ducal purposes, have thought themselves none 
the worse Christians for being Free Masons. 

That the argument of the text is of this masonic character is 
as apparent as that it has any argument at all. For none at all is 
there in it, if it be not the argument a fortiori^ or argument from 



THE devil's PULPrr. 253 

the stronger, admitting the sanctifying efi&cacy of tlie Tauribolium 
and Mgibohum, the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes (that 
is the modest word for the excrements) of a heifer sprinkling the 
unclean, to sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, in order to prove 
the still more purifying and higher efficacy of the blood of Christ, 
when applied in the same way. 

I must now, then, re-open our masonic lodge, and suppose the 
proofs admitted, whereby I have already proved that the terms 
Christians, Jews, Israelites and Hebrews, are not names of com- 
munities that ever existed in a national or political character, bujt 
are designations of the different degrees, or grades of initiation in 
the mysteries of masonry. This Epistle, then, to the Hebrews, is 
an epistle to Free Masons of the rank of the Fi^patoL — that is, of 
those who had passed over, or passed through, as the name literally 
signifies, passed over the middle wall of partition, between Jews 
and Gentiles, and were therefore admitted to a far different un- 
standing of the mysteries of the craft, from that which does well, 
and well enough, for the bearded babies and sucklings of the 
gospel. 

A Christian sticks to the gospel of Christ, and takes it all to be 
literally true, which is very well for him — for as the " thrice puis- 
sant, illustrious, respectable, and worshipful Adoniram," in this 
Epistle to the Hebrews, justly tells them, " the doctrine of Christ 
is baby's meat ; it is mere meat and lollypop for the nursery : as 
he tells the lodge at Corinth, ' I have fed you with milk and not 
with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet 
now are ye able.' " But as the fellow-craft masons — that is the 
Hebrews, were more advanced, he addresses them, in the 6th 
chapter of the Hebrews, or Perates, or Past-overs, ''Holy brethren, 
partakers of the Heavenly calling " (leaving the doctrine of Christ, 
and all such like milk-and-water stuff for fools) let us go on to per- 
fection, as Free and Accepted Masons, "to the praise and glory of 
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the blood." 1 
Eph. v^i. 

As all the other Epistles in the New Testament, called the 
Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Corinthians, P]phe- 
sians, Collossians, Thessalonians, &c., are epistles to different 
lodges of Free Masons, which were established in Rome, Corinth, 
Ephesus, &c., and had been established for ages before our date 
of the Christian era. And these are exhorted, in language which 
none but masons could properly understand, to " build themselves 
up in their most holy faith." 

As in the opening of a lodge in the second degree of masonry, 
or "a fellow-craftsman's lodge," after the due knocks and signs, 



254 THE devil's priiPiT. 

and assm-ance given to the worshipful master that the lodge ii 
properly tiled, the worshipful maiter calls out, " Brethren to order! 
as masons in the second degree. Brother Junior Waixien, are you 
a fellow-craft Free Mason V 

The Junior Warden, answers, " I am : try me, prove me." 

Worshipful Master: •' By what instrument in architecture will 
vou be proved?" 

The Junior Warden answers. '•' By the square." 

Worshipful Master: '• What is the square ?" 

Junior Warden : " An angle of ninety degrees, forming the 
fourth part of a circle." 

To which the Worshipful "Master answers, •' Since you are so 
well informed yourself — 

(Wonderful information, you see, it is for a Free Mason to know 
what a square is I) — '• Since you are so well informed yourself, you 
will prove the brethren present to be Free Masons, by three-fold 
signs, and demonstrate that proof to be correct, by copying their 
example. 

This reference to the square, or squarer, whose use in building is 
to ascertain the perfect equality of the angles of the stones which 
are to form the building, identifies these fellow-craftsmen, or 
masons of the second degree, with the masons of the lodge ot 
Ephesus, addressed by Paul (who was a mason of the third degree), 
in the Second Chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians, where, 
distinguishing these fellow-craft Free Masons from those of the 
first, or entered apprentice's degree, he adflresses them : — Xow, 
therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
citizen's with the Saints, and of the household of God, and are 
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the bivhi- 
ing fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord : 
**Iu whom ye also {having been tried by the square) are builded 
together for an habitation of God through the Spirit ;*' or, as they 
are addressed by the Free Masons, Saint Pefer (whose name itself 
Eignific^s a Stone, than which masonry itself could not possibly be 
more masonic.) 

" Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house. But 
unto them which be disobedient, the same stone which the builders 
(or masons) rejected, is made the head of the corner, and a stone 
of stumbling and a rock of ofience, even to them which stumble 
at the word." Stumble at what word ? In the name of God, the 
Great Architect, what word could that be, but the pass- word ? the 
knowledge of which could only be committed to masons of the 
higher degree ; and the being at a fault for which, when called 



THE devil's pulpit. 255 

upon, detected the mason, who should attempt to play the cowan, 
and penetrate into the mysteries into which he had not been duly 
initiated. He would stumble at the word: which, as it had never 
been committed to any one who had not gone through the cere- 
mony, and had the bandage taken from before his eyes, — whereby, 
says the worshipful master, he " should show forth the praises of 
him who had called him out of darkness into his marble ous light," 
none but the '' Free and accepted Masons " could know the word ; 
and all the rest would stumble at it. 

But I, in challenge of all the Free Masons in the world, — bet- 
ter acquainted, as I am sure I am, with their mysteries, than them- 
selves, — archer than the archest of them, — have not stumbled at 
the word. I have discovered the great secret. 

The spirit of the great master, Hiram Abifif, the immortal wid- 
ow's son, hath led me to the centre, from which point no master 
mason can err : and of those genuine secrets of a master mason, 
lost by the untimely death of Hiram Abiflf, and admitted to be 
lost in every lodge of Free Masons in the world, 1 can say Eure- 
ka, — I have found thee : I have drank of the blood of the ever- 
lasting covenant, and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ flows in 
these veins. 

" Abeste, Abeste, procul abeste profani.'- 

Be far hence : be far hence, ye profane. 

Brother Junior warden, see that the lodge be properly tiled. 

Let not the Thracians tear their Orpheus. 

Let not the wicked approach to hurt me. 
. Let not Ehyroh of the Cave again assault the sacred person of 
Hiram Abifl', the immortal widow's son. 

Let not the Christians, again in my person, crucify the Son of 
God afresh, and put him to an open shame." 

And then masons, of the higher orders, " to you it shall be 
given to ku.ow the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven. 

And none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall 
understand." 

Brothers of our holy order, again I charge you to see that our 
lodge be properly tiled. 

If there be any here who love not truth, or fear to hear it, let 
them depart in peace, ere I pronounce the great and fearful word 
of God, which is '' quick and powerful, and sharper than any two 
edged sword, reaching to the dividing asunder of the soul and 
spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart." 

The sharp-cutting sword do 1 now strike home to the heart of 
every individual who hath ever been initialed in a lodge of Free 



256 THE devil's pulpit. 

Masons : in the declaration of a truth which must pent'trate him 
to the marrow ; and the truth is, — that no honest man was ever 
conscious of a secret, or, being conscious of one, ever kept it. He 
who would be privy to the concealment of anything which it con- 
cerns another, as w^ell as himself, to know, is a villain. He who 
by any sort of ceremonies could be bound by others, or imagine 
that he had bound himself to keep such a secret, doth write him- 
self a fool ! 

And though he may have been passed through all the idiotish 
fooleries of the drunken beastly bacchanals, who call themselves 
Masons, he was never a member of the community of rational 
men who call themselves fkee. The very signs and symbols, the 
winks and grips, pass-words and ceremonies, by which he hath been 
befooled into the conceit, that he hath been let into the secret, are 
the proof and demonstration that he hath been shut out of it. The 
SECRET, or, as the world originally meant, the sacred, of Free Ma- 
sonry, was in its intention only sacred and secret, from the natural 
and insuperable difficulty of communicating the great truths of 
astronomical science to the vulgar mind, and of preserving records 
of the great phenomena of nature, which only the few, the very 
few of mankind, in their infant emergence out of barbarism, had 
leisure to observe, or, ingenuity to record. 

And these were not secret, nor sacred, any further, or in any 
other sense than the science of geometry or navigation are secret 
or sacred from those who know nothing about them. 

All the mystery and allegory grew upon the necessity of using 
symbols and characters, by which the well-skilled in these sciences 
might communicate with each other, but which the ignorant and 
foolish multitude run away with, as the ultimate scope and inten- 
tion of all that could ever have been intended. And as the dunces 
and fools were infinitely the majority, the wise and intelligent 
found their machinery taken out of their own hands, and were not 
allowed to rectify the error of general ignorance, nor to explain 
their ow^n meaning. 

The great secret of masonry, w^hich the masons themselves were 
not allowed to know, and which for that reason, and that alone, 
they never told, was that strong meat, which even the perats, or 
Hebrews themselves, were not able to digest, because, as the wor- 
shipful master tells them, in the 5th chapter of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, that " strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age^ 
who have their senses exercised in the use of their reason, to discern 
both good and eviiy reXeiddv oe eortv rj orepea TpO(p7]. 

I need not tell ye, then, how innocent both Jews and Gentiles, 
and all the choused masons of the craft, below the rank of the 



THE devil's pulpit. 257 

Teleios, or psrfect masons, must necessarily be of the great secret 
of Free Masonry ; when God-a-mighty knows, that they never ex- 
ercise their sense or reason in the matter at all. 

So there are but three Free Masons of the highest rank, the 
Teleioi, or Perfect Masons, who could tell you. the secret, an' if 
they would. And those three masons, the magistri magistrorum, 
the master of the masters, the only perfect masons in this kingdom, 
are the Duke of Sussex, who is the first, — Mr. Richard Carlile is 
the second, — and modesty only forbids me to name the third. 

There were but two copies of the great development of the 
work of the " Frere Ma9on Reghellini de Schio " brought into 
England ; and of those two, the Duke of Sussex has the one, and 
I have the other. 

The great" secret was, an honest avowal and full discovery to 
the perfect mason of the utter imposture of all the religions that 
were ever in the world, and the obtaining of his forgiveness of all the 
mummeries and tricks that had been played off upon him, to prove 
whether he had a mind capable of rising above them, and to bar off 
the brute and barbarous multitude, to escape from whose savage 
fangs science was obliged to hide herself in the cloak of mystery. 
The Christians, the Jews, the Israelites, and all the other stones 
and blocks of masonry, who were made to be beplastered and put 
uj)07i, — being never so self-satisfied as when most imposed on ; 
never so wise, as when most egregiously ignorant : and never so 
happy as when perfectly miserable. 

Ere this could pass through the dark '^ chambers of Imagery'* 
into the bright hall of Science and Truth, they would, as they do, 
stumble at the word, — and what word could that be, but the word 
of salvation, the word which every Christian has a thousand times 
seen written in Roman letters over every representation of Christ 
upon the cross ? i. e. 

The Christian Teragrammaton Inri, consisting of the four let- 
ters, I. N. R. I? 

A little bit of Latin, I suppose, like the labels on the doctor's 
gallipot, that stands as well for Jesus Nazarenus Rex JudcEorum — 
that is, " Jesus the Free Mason, the king of the fellow-crafts' men," 
as it would stand in English for. Jack Nobody, Rascally Jack. 

Ask your preachers of the gospel to tell you the meaning of it : 
they cannot tell you, they would stumble at the woi'd, and would 
be ready to knock you down for asking them. It might be right 
for Christians not to seek to be wise above what is written : but 
their folly has been so monstrous, that they have never sought to be 
so wise as to know the meaning of what is written : and there stand 
the four letters, I. N. R. I. upon the church, of which Christians 



258 '^^E DEVIL S PULPIT. 

know no more the meaning, than they do the meaning of the cavh 
ing of a crow upon the steeple. 

Those letters are the initials of the four pass-words to the higher 
grades of masonry, lami, Noiir, Rouach, lebeschal, which signify the 
four elements, Water, Fire, Air, and Earth, over which th& four 
archangels were imagined to preside, whose names are pass-words 
in masonry, Asdukel, Casmaran, Tarliud, ojid Furlac, the mean- 
ing of the mystery being, that the Being who is represented as 
hanging below the word I. N. R. I., is the personified genius of 
the universal nature. *' For in him," says the apostle, "dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily :" and all the elements. Fire, ^zr, 
Earth, and Water, which make up and constitute the Fleroma, 
or fulness of the Godhead, are equally effected by the position of 
the God of Nature — that is, of the Sun, when upon the Cross of 
the Equator. 

Thus, to those who knew the secret, the difference between a 
man's saying Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus, would be difference 
enough to show which way the wind blew. 

If he said Jesus Christ, he was only a Christian, — he was a 
Johnny Eaw, and knew no more about Christianity than the 
knaves of the higher grades of masonry had taught him. But if 
he said Christ Jesus, and tipt the wink, to show that he had not 
said so by accident^ but kenned the everlasting science which 
determines the reason why he should say Christ Jesus rather than 
Jesus Christ, he was known to be a Free and an Accepted Mason, 
and would not be found at the pillar Boaz (the left), when he 
should understand Jachin (the right) . That on the right Jachin, — 
on the left Boaz. (2 Chron. iii.) 

KaropdnoLG 'nn'^ {Yeken), restification. 

IpX^^ '^^^ {Foz) , strength, 

" But !" cry me some of the Free Masons of the lower lodo^es, 
" we have been initiated, we are regular members, we have gone 
through all the ceremonies, and we never heard anything of the 
sort." I know ye never did : ye have kept the secret very inviola- 
bly. I give ye infinite credit for your fidelity,— 

You have been very faithful, sirs : I know 
You never told whgit you did never know. 

But I must tell you, sirs, the secret of the Lord is with them that 
fear him, and he will show them his covenant ; the secret of the 
Lord is with them that fear him, and put their trust in their 
mercy, — that do I ; and that is what none of your preachers of the 
gospel, nor any of your masons below the rank of royal arch, know 
any thing of. 



THE devil's pulpit. 259 

I can say, with holy Job, " 1 have made a covenant with mme 
eye; why then should I think upon a maidV (Job 31.) 'Tis 
Arabic, 'tis Shem Hemephoresh, ^tis Abracadabra, to you. Go ask 
any preacher of the gospel to give you the meaning of it, — not one 
in all this priest-ridden and priest-insulted metropolis, would ye 
find who was not as ignorant of the meaning of it as a horse. Go 
tell your " thrice pussiant, illustrious, respectable, and worshipful 
Adoniram," that I can tell the meaning of it ; and if he can tell it 
himself, he will admit that he who can do so has discovered the 
great secret of the royal arch. 

Shall I discover to you something of this glorious secret, or will 
ye still go to church and chapels, and be for ever the dolts and 
dunces that your priests would have ye to be ? 

Look, then, upon the vault* bosom of the visible heavens, that 
real royal arch, in which reigns the glorious King of Day. Observe 
the apparent passage of the Sun round the Earth, which is the 
real passage of the Earth round the Sun. Twice a year you will 
perceive the Sun shines exactly upon the line which you might 
imagine to divide our globe into two equal parts ; and, in conse- 
quence of his shining thus exactly over the middle, he gives an equal 
length of day and night to all the inhabitants of the earth. 

This he does, once in coming upwards, which is the spring 
quarter ; and once again, in coming down, from his highest point 
of the great or royal arch, towards winter, when it is autumn. 

These two points, then, at which the sun comes to the line, bear 
the name which expresses coming together, Co-Venants, the two 
Covenants. And these two Co-Yenants, or coming together of the 
line of the Sun's path, called the Ecliptic, with the line of the Equa- 
tor, take place, one in spring and the other in autumn, and are there- 
fore called respectively, " the Covenant of Works" — that is when 
men are called on to labor in^the cultivation of the earth ; and ''tlie 
Covenant of Grace'' fruition or enjoyment, under which they are to 
enjoy the fruits of their labour. 

The coming together, in the spring quarter, took place when the 
Sun is seen to be in the group of Stars called the Lamb ; and in 
autumn, when he appears to be in the Scales, or Balance of Sep- 
tember, after having passed through the Virgin, or Maid of 
August. And as the Covenant of Grace does not take place 
when the Sun is in the group of Stars, which are called the Virgin, 
nor before it reaches the further end of the Scales, which it does on 
Michaelmas-day, the Free Mason Job says, " / have made the Cove- 
nant with mine eyes,'' meaning, I have, by astronomical observation, 
ascertained the point of the Covenant ; I have ascertained and it 
is in Libra, the Balance of September. Why then should 1 look 



THE devil's pulpit. 260 

for it in the Virgin of Angii?t. And these two Covenants are the 
two masonic columns. Jachin and Boaz. — the one signifying 
science, the other strength ; in allegorical language, Christ the 
wislom of God, and Jesus the power of God. 

Thus Faith is the Genius of Spring ; Hope of Summer ; and 
Chanty of autumn. 

Faith of Spring, because Faith and TTorks must always come 
together. 

"Hopz. of Summer, because from that point the Sun looks verti- 
cally down upon the seals which have been committed in faith to 
the fertilising womb of the Earth. 

Chafjtv. of Autumn, because the sun empties his Cornucopia 
into our desiring lap. 

Faith is the Eastern Piliar : Charity the TTestem Pillar ; and 
Rope the Key Stone of this Royal Arch I 

•• Christ is the end of the Law to them that believe ;" — that is, 
the Lamb of God. in Spring : but Jesus is the other end of the 
law — that is. '' that Just Oxe.'" in the Scales of Autumn, when in 
the rich and luxurious juice of the grape, he gives us his blood to 
drink : and it is this blood, and this alone, which, not reaching its 
full ripeness before the Autumnal Equinox, is called the Blood of 
the Covenant. 

And the vintners, or those who tread upon the grapes to press 
their juice out. do every year trample under foot the Son of God — 
that is, of God. the true vine, or Bachus. being really the ofl&pring, 
Gift, or Son of the Sun in the constellation of Gab, which is 
March. But they never account the blood of the covenant, with 
which they are sanctified — that is. Sunnified (if I may coin that 
word), to have sunshine put into them, an unholy — that is an un- 
sunnyxhin^ : they know it is the finest drink in the world, and that 
they owe it entirely to the Sun, whose blood, in so striking a me- 
taphor, it really is. 

And thus it is. in reference to the Scales of justice, that the 
Grand Master, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or Free Masons of 
the line of the passover. or the plummet, plays ofi" his riddles about 
" We hiOic him that hath said vengeuncc belongeth unto me, and 
the Lord (that is. the Sun) shall judge his people.'' as I know all 
about it too. " The day of Vengeance" — that is, literally, of Vine- 
gence. meaning nothing else than the day of working the Vine 
wine-making. It is the allegorical language of the Sun, in the 
Scale of September. And all the scope of this affair is nothing 
more than a warninof. on the part of the master of the vintage, to 
those who were employed in trampling under foot the Son of God, 
to remen»ber that the blood of the covenant was very intoxicating ; 



THE DEVIL S PULPIT. 261 

and if they should get so drunk with it as to fall into the vat, it 
would be dog-epov a very dangerous thing. It is a fearful thing tc 
fall into the hands of the Qeog ^g)v — thsd fermenting God — that iSj 
into the wine vat. 

The Jews, an order of Free Masons, above that of Christians, 
but below that of Hebrews, profess that the name of the Supreme 
Deity is unutterable, and invariably substitute in the stead of the 
word which we absurdly and erroneously pronounce Jehovah 
Adonai, which is. literally, My Lords — with the pronoun sufiSx to 
the plural of the word Adonis, the well-known name of the beauti- 
ful son of Marrha in the Pagan mythology, and never meaning any 
thing else than the Sun itself — that is ad the Lord ; on, the Being ; 
IS, the Fire, which is the Sun, in allegorical language, the Father, 
the Husband, the Son, the Lover of the Lamb's Wife — that is, the 
everlasting Mrs. Lamb, the August Virgin Mary of the Zodiac. 
While the Free Masons of a higher degree make a precisely similar 
pretence, and have a mystical or tahsmanic name of God, which 
is never communicated but to the very highest of the craft, which 
they are not allowed to utter, — but I will ; and of which they them- 
selves don't know the meaning, and I do ! 

As you find the Hebrew, or third degree mason, Paul, in 2 
Corinth, xii. 4, describing himself as having been caught up into 
the third heaven, where he heard " unspeakable words, which it is 
not lawful for a man to utter." 

Not lawful for a man to utter! I shall be damned if I utter it. 
But, since it comes to, that I'll be damned if I don't : I have it : 
the great secret is here ! — I am bursting to let it out. Where is 
the Devil? — keep him off from me a moment. The unutterable 
word is — is — Jao-Bull-on ! Lord, Lord, Lord ! Jao-Bull- 
on. What alive 1 and the secret is out : the common secret of 
Free Masonry, of Christianity, of Fudaism, and of Paganism. 

But what is its meaning ? 

lao), the name of the Supreme Being-, as uttered from the Sacred 
Tripod of the Delphic Oracle. 

^pa^eo) oe tcjv navr cjv vnarov eiifiev lao) 

I pronounce lao) to be the name of the Supreme Being. I, the 
symbol of unity in number. Alpha and Omega, a and o, the 
first and the last, the beginning and the end, which was, and which 
is to come, " the Almighty." 

Rull Bui Bole. Disguise it as you will, utter it in any tongue 
of all the peopled earth, its essence and significaucy is none other 
than Baal, the name of the Supreme God, when the Covenant— 



2 ^'2 THE dkvil'? pulpit. 

^" ~ ''.'. ■;' ' T^: ::_:?. Equinox, was in the Bull of the Z-.'::ac. firom 

:iiat sacred animal, in onr own ,e, to 

L ever-varied Egyptian name c thus 

- ^ indeed it has been, the g : i only 

_ =: ID : and the sdence of iLr :^ or of 

ast: 1 - : ir i : soterie secret of Free M : 7. 

rhr ;■ l;t : Lr :- _ the secret sense of alJ ni-^^rr: is 

^ . ::: 5 c^il hi :- : : : ; : :_3 : 1: :e object of all ih^i is. 

Ii.e 

Father of i.h, ::-. r-^y." i.i:e. 

Ev --i:-;h' -- ^;--. .1, ;: 1- £-e. 
'lea, Buh, ;: h::i. 



mXD OF THE SECOyD LEC'TUEE C^' FREE MA.SOyBT« 



Tl DiVIL'S PULPIT. 

"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT lS:'^Allan Cunningham. 

LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 

PART III. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, APRIL 19. 1831. 



" Now the God of Peace ^ that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that Great Shepharcl of the Sheep, through the 
blood of the everlasting Covenant, make you perfect m every 
good work to do his will, working in you that which is well 
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ : to whom be glory 
for ever and ever, Ammon.'^ — Hebrews xiii. 20. 

Now, the God of Peace ? 1. What's the meaning of the God 
of Peace ? 2. And wliat's the difference between the God of 
Peace, and the Peace of God : which, the parsons tell us, passeth 
all understanding? And how many Gods are there? since we 
read not only of a God of Peace, but of a God of Battles, and 
of a God of Mercy, and a God of Wrath, and a God of this World, 
and a God of Heaven ? With this most curious distinction, that it 
is the God of Peace who alone is called the Very God of Peace. 
1 Thess. V. 23. And in the Nicene Creed, the Very God of Very 
God. Are there some Gods that are not Very Gods ? Are there 
Summer Gods, Autumnal, and Winter Gods, as well as Very or 
Spring Gods? And why is it, that the Very God, and the Verily 
Verily way of speaking, always stands in connection with something 
about a sheep, or a mutton, or a ram, or a lamb, or a tup, or uu 
ewe, or a Rachel, or a shepherd, or a sheepfold ? Never is the 
association varied. It is the God of Peace, that brings back the 
sliephard from the dead, after he had been as dead as nmtton. And 
why is it that always, after our ideas have been led to tlie Verily 



264 THE devil's pulpit. 

Verily shepherd of the sheep, we are admonished that we must go 
to plow, ''to every good work, and labour," in the cultivation of 
the earth. And then Jesus Christ is defined as "to whom be 
glory" — that is, in whom is Sunshine: and then— Ammon. 

Are not these questions the like of which a rational man would 
ask, and on which he would insist on receiving the most ample 
satisfaction, in any matter which concerned, or which he thought 
might concern, his temporal interest ? Say that it might be some- 
thing which would give him a title, or claim to receive twenty, 
or one hundred, or ten thousand pounds, or bring him under an 
obligation, to pay, or make good some such a sum, according as 
the letter and spirit of the document should determine. 

Would he treat the copy of a lease, a will, or a title deed, as he 
treats what he calls a revelation from the God who made him ? 

A revelation from the All-wise God, on the proper understand- 
ing and due obedience to which, his eternal happiness or eternal 
misery is at stake, — a revelation originally written in Greek ! 

Greek ! My God ! and would not a sensible man say, does not 
the All-wise God know, that I am an Englishman : and if he had 
any revelation which he wished me to attend to, why didn't he 
write it in plain English ? 

Aye, but the parsons, ye see, very learned, and entirely disinter- 
ested men, have kindly interposed in the affair, and have given us 
a translation out of the original Greek into the vulgar tongue. 
Yes they have, — and the Devil thank 'em for their interference. 
I thought that there had been but one Mediator between God and 
Man. But if there be no means of knowing the will of God, but 
by a revelation which requires to be translated, why, 'fore God ? 
there must be as many mediators as translators. 

But look, then, at the translation, such as the translators, these 
self-constituted Mediators between God and Man, have given it us — 
these very learned and entirely disinterested clergy — who, seeing 
that God wished to communicate his will to us, in generous conde- 
scension to our ignorance, and to God's ignorance as well as ours, 
have kindly interfered to tell us what he means. 

I dare say God would have explained it himself, if he could. 

But here is the meaning, brought down to the meanness of the 
meanest capacity, with this most singular advantage, that the 
meaner a man's capacity is, the better is he satisfied with the 
meaning. 

And so here, after ^' the bulls' blood, and the goats' blood, and 
the ashes of a calf sprinkling the unclean, and Jesus suffering with- 
out the gate, and sprinkling us with his blood, and sanctifying us 
with his blood," and all sorts of nastiness, comes the wind-up, about 



THE devil's pulpit. 265 

the God of Peace, and the shepherd of the sheep, and the dead alive 
again, and the blood of the everlasting covenant, and Jesus Christ, 
and glory for ever and ever, and — Ammon. 

And sure. Sirs, they who think it no presumption to translate to 
you, what it is that God means, ought not to persecute me, for 
translating to you v/hat it is that they mean. 

It is the secret of the masonic craft, — it is the secret of priest- 
craft, — it is the secret of lawcraft, and gospelcraft : it is the secret 
of everything that is secret, — Gammon. 

Go to the door of a masonic lodge, give 'em three knocks, the 
dactylic knock, one long and two short ; the anapaestic knock, two 
short and one long ; and the adonic, one long, two short, and two 
long. 

1. Tiim ti-ti. 

2. Ti-ti turn. 

3. Turn ti-ti — turn turn. 

And then, as our blessed Saviour says, " Knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you ;" and when it is opened, bounce in upon 'em, and 
cry " Gammon !" and, my life on't, if the master of the lodge will 
not recognize you for a Royal Arch, without your ever having had 
your buttons taken off your clothes, a halter put round your neck, 
a dagger held to your breast, your eyes bandaged, or any other of 
those disgusting and filthy fooleries, whose usage accounts for so 
many kings and princes, and royal dukes, having been Free Masons. 

Had any good or just feeling towards mankind, been at the bot- 
tom of their mysteries, you would never have heard of a royal duke 
being at the top of them. 

The word Ammon, which is really and truly the identity, the 
very same as our word. Amen, which comes at the end of all our 
prayers, and creeds and collects, at the end of all the titles and epi- 
thets of Jesus Christ, and at the end of every thing that is exces- 
sively nonsensical and mysterious, always signified the secret one, 
the hidden, the occult, and was uttered in a low voice, in intima- 
tion to the mystics, that something was to be sought for, that was 
lost, and to be found again ; there was a subauditur, a suhintelligi- 
tur, something of which you were to " give it an understanding, but 
no tongue.'* 

And in this use, it was one of the names of Jupiter, and as regu- 
larly closed his catalogue of titles, as those of Jesus Christ, sigui ly- 
ing that Jupiter was Ammon, as it also signifies, to those who look 
for significations, that Jesus Christ is Amnion. 

Juj)iter- Ammon being precisely the same deity as Jesus Christ 
Amen : or, as it stands at the beginning of a will, In the name 
of God, Amen. And both Jupiter, Amnion, and God Amnion, 



266 THE devil's pulpit. 

and Jesus Christ, Amen, are personifications of the Sun, who i& 
Jupiter, in Spring ; Christ, in Summer ; Jasus, in Autumn ; and 
Amen, in Winter. 

Hence the mystic game of liide and seek, or bo-peep, or blind- 
man's buff, or hunt the slipper, or something that was lost, and 
again to be found, or something that was hidden, and to be sought 
for, which is the one common and universal conceit that runs 
through all the forms of religion that ever were in the world, and 
never diflPering in any one religion, from the ceremonies of any 
other. Thus the Free Masons pretend to seek for the lost secrets 
of Hiram Abifif; the worshippers of the Goddess Isis, seek for the 
remains of Osiris. The Eleusinian Dionysian, Adonic, Bacchana- 
lian, Masonic, Jewish, and Christian Mysteries, alike abound in the 
same figures of speech, about seeking for the Lord, and calling on 
the name of the Lord, as if to awake him, with a sort of ''Holloa,^' 
God Almighty ! Where are you. My Lord God ? 

As you will observe, all these seekings for God, begin with a 
mighty big 0, as *'0 Lord God Almighty ! and Lord Jesus 
Christ," and end with crying out the word of the game, or the 
word of life, as it is called. As the bishop is exhorted to hold 
fast the faithful word (I Titus 9), which is a sort oi whoop, or puss, 
puss, give me a little water ; the faithful word, being Amman, And 
it is never till they cry Amman, that the fervent prayermonger 
rises from his knees, takes his hands away from his eyes, and seems 
as if he had just recovered his lost senses. 

But it is especially to be observed, that this mystical operation 
oi seeking the Lord, is always to be performed with the eyes shut, 
or at least only squinting between their fingers, there being nothing 
that religious people are so much afraid of as letting in too much 
light upon their dark fooleries. It is the self-same game of the 
nursery. Only the big fools are playing at it, instead of the little 
ones, the game of shut your eyes, and open your mouth, and see 
what God will send you. 

Only the worst on't is, that the forty and fifty year old babies 
when we won't play with 'em at hide and seek, are for changing 
the game, into prisoner's bars. A dirty trick that, Sirs, when they 
dared not attempt to grapple with the man's argument. 

Thus, when the wise and studious had compared the glorious 
Arch of Heaven, to the vanity dome of a magnificent temple, it 
was much easier to jump to the conclusion at once, that it was 
Solomon's Temple, than to take any pains to learn astronomy. 
Who knows, but that there might have been such a temple ? and, 
certain it is, that very fine temples have been built, precisely as 
globes, '.uid eidouranions, and orreries, are constructed at this day. 



THE devil's pulpit. 261 

in which, the great model of what astronomers and philosophers 
have observed in the visible heavens, has been represented in the 
forms and ornaments of our churches, cathedrals, and chapels, to 
this day, — the original devisers, intending them, as temples of 
science, — the barbarians into whose hands they have subsequently 
lapsed, perverting them into means of perpetuating the first and 
grossest conceits which infancy could form, and thus binding down 
the child who, when he was a child, did think as a child, and speak 
as a child, when he became a man, to be as great a child as ever : 
and, to this day, will you see the forty-year-old babies running 
av/ay from the Eotunda, for fear any thing should be explained to 
them : and praying to God, that they may die in the same faith 
that they were born in, and so be brought down, no wiser than 
they were brought up. 

But now for demonstration : look, I beseech you, as to the two 
pillars, which constitute the essential emblem of Free Masonry. 
You never saw nor heard of a masonic lodge in which that emblem 
was wanting. 

They are called respectively Boaz and Jachin, the names which 
Solomon, the wisest of men, is said to have given to the two pillars, 
which he set up in the porch of the temple. 

"And he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof 
Jachin, and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof 
Boaz." 1 Kings, vii. 21. As the masons of the present day ab- 
surdly pretend, that Boaz and Jachin were masons employed under 
the director of their great master, Hiram AbifF, and to their hon- 
our these pillars were respectively consecrated. 

Boaz, the column on the left, being the name of the master of 
the apprentices in the masonic mysteries. 

Jachin, the column on the right, being the name of the master 
of the fellow-craft masons in the same mysteries : while Hiram 
Abiff, the immortal widow's son, who is the Jesus Christ of the 
system, and the great object of their idolatrous veneration, is 
honoured by the consecration of a tomb, which is placed at the 
north part of the sanctuary. 

While a rope, that comes from the coffin in the north, goes by 
the obelisk in the south, and binds the two columns together, — 
which columns, says the perfect master, are fixed crossways. 

It was at the fixed cross-way, called the Pillar Jachin, the right- 
hand pillar, that Jachin paid the craftsmen their wages, 'liiat 
was very just of him. Could any thing lead the mind more directly 
to the idea of justice? And Justice, observe ye, standing at the 
cross- way. 



268 THE devil's pulpit. 

And Jachin, the pillar at the cross-way of justice, is mastt r of 
the fellow-craft masoDs. who enjoy the fruits of their labour. 

While Boaz. the pillar at the left cros:^-way, is only master of 
the entered apprentice masons, who do all the work. 

I seek the deriratious of the words Bcaz and Jachin (which 
is what masons themselves never think of), and I find them, respec- 
tively, Boaz, "In it is strength/' and Jachix, ''He shall establish:^' 
thus identifying the radical ideas of Might and Right, Strength 
and Justice. 

I look, again, at the masonic insignia, and I see that these 
two Pillars, which the perfect master has told me, are two cross- 
ways, and which I have told him, signify Might and Eight, are 
adorned by an arch of cloud, which seems to rest upon them. 

They are then cloudy pillars, and I learn that I am to look for 
them in the clouds, and through the clouds. They are the pillare 
of Heaven, supporting the vanity arch so high above our heads, 
and that arch only is the royal arch, in which the King of Heaven — 
that is, the Sun, reigns through the summer months, commencing 
at the Vernal Equinox, in Spring, where Boaz, the master of the 
entered apprentices, sets his men to work, in cultivating the earth, 
and ending at the Autumnal Equinox, the 29th of September, 
where Jachin, the master of the fellow-craft masons, pays the men 
their wages by giving them the fruits of the earth. 

And these two Equinoctial points, when the days and nights 
are of an equal length, as they are on the 25th of March, and the 
29th of September, are called pillars, because the great semicircle, 
or upper hemisphere, doth seem to rest upon them, as they are ex- 
pressly called by Job (chap, 36), ''the pillars of Heaven, standing 
until the day and night come to an end ; which is manifestly an 
elliptical, or abbreviated sentence, of which the sense filled up is — 
the pillars of heaven standing at the point where the inequality of 
the length of day and night, is at an end, and the days and nights 
are of an equal length over all the earth, as they are when the Sun 
is at the point of the Vernal, in Spring, and again, at the point of 
the Autumnal Equinox, in Autumn. 

But the Adoniram of the masonic mysteries, has further be- 
trayed the craft, by telling the perfect master that the pillars, 
Boaz and Jachix are not only pillars, but cross-ways. 

Now, in the name of God. what are cross-ways but two ways of 
which the one crosses the other? I ask no more of your credulity, 
than that you would look on the heavens for yourselves, or on 
these representations of the heavens and the earth, and then try to 
deny, if you can, that these cross- ways, Boaz and Jachin, are the 
Vernal and Equinoctial points, at which the line of the Ecliptic 



THE devil's pulpit. 269 

crosses the line of the Equator — that is, the Sun in his apparent 
path, — the Ecliptic, comes to shine directly over the line of the 
Equator ; this it does in Spring and Autumn, and only then. 
Hence these comings togetker — that is, comings of the line of the 
Sun's path to the line of the Equator, are called the two Cove- 
nants, or the two Testaments ; and you have the reason in Heaven, 
while no earthly reason whatever could be assigned, why there 
should only be two Covenants, or two Testaments, the Old and the 
New. 

Which Covenants, Saint Paul expressly tells the Free Masons 
of Galatia, "are an allegory" — that is, most expressly, the whole 
contents of both the Old and the New Testament, are in every 
respect a mere allegory, and not a word of historical truth, nor 
was any thing like history ever intended. 

Now, Sirs, when I take an algebraic problem, and work it out 
geometrically, it is admitted to be science, — it is called demon- 
stration. 

If, then, I take the terms of an admitted allegory, and find them 
answering, in every respect whatever, to their solution in the visi- 
ble phoenomena of nature, — is not that demonstration? 

Give me, then, the mathematically accurate points ofthet^vo 
Covenants of Spring and Autumn, and resist the demonstration 
who can ? that every figure of speech, with respect to the two 
Covenants, answers to the absolute relations of nature at those 
seasons 

SPRING. AUTUMN. 

March 21st, at twenty-one September 23rd, at forty-six 

minutes after eight in the minutes after seven in the 

morning. afternoon. 

Spring, the Covenant of works, Autumn, the Covenant of 
when men must cultivate the grace, when they are to en- 
earth, joy the fruits of their la- 
bours. 

The Jewish Dispensation. The Christian Dispensation. 

The Law. The Gospel. 

Truth. Mercy. 

Righteousness. Peace. 

Boaz. Jachin, 

Masonry under the Law of Masonry under the Law of 

Types and Shadows. Grace and Truth. 

Hence it is, that in the gospel covenant (that is, at the Au- 
tumnal Equinox), when all the great ends for which the year 



2 TO THE devil's pulpit. 

exists, are annexed, when the Sun of Aries, the Kani of March 
has come i7ito Libra, the Balance of September, the allegorical 
conundrum is, "Mercy and Truth are met toge^ther ; Eighteousnes? 
and Peace have kissed each other." Psalm 85. And this kissing, 
takes place — (where should it else) — on the lips of the Virgin? 

But not till Grod's justice has been satisfied. And how can 
God's justice be satisfied, but by the Sun's going a little bit fur- 
ther than the Virgin of August, and putting himself into the Scales 
of September. 

And out of those Scales he will not get ; and that justice, 
therefore, will not be satisfied, without a crucifixion. For in those 
Scales of Justice, is the cross-way , Jachin, where the line of the 
Ecliptic crosses the Equator. 

As you read in the allegorical gospel, "Now there stood by the 
Cross of Jesus, Mary his Mother." 

Eternal God ! and does she not stand there still ? Can the 
clergy say that I did this ? 

Why do they shake their gory locks at me? 

But see here — here stands— the Virgin of August, by the side 
of the Cross of September. 

What ! and say my barbarous persecutors ; do I make nothing 
but an allegory of that awful display of the divine attribute, when 
God, to satisfy his own justice, vouchsafed to be crucified ? 

And do I make nothing more of Mercy and Truth meeting 
together, than a mere allegory of what happens every Autumn of 
our lives ? 

No, nothing more ! but I do with my Bible what my perse- 
cutors never do or did with theirs : I read it, and understand what 
I read. 

And I read immediately in the context, that when Mercy and 
Truth meet together, and Righteousness and Peace kiss each other, 
then it is that ''our land doth yield her increase ;" and if it be not 
in Autumn that our land doth yield her increase, why, then, I'll 
try again, and say with the Holy David, in the 74th Psalm, -'0 
Lord, look upon the Covenant, for all the earth is full of darkness 
and cruel habitations ;" which I should understand to mean : "Give 
us an abundant harvest, and a luxurious vintage, as thou hast 
promised, to reward our labour, for all the earth — that is, all that 
part of the earth which falls below the points of the Covenant, is 
full of dark and gloomy days, and all the celestial mansions, then 
over it, are cruel habitations." The damnation Scorpion of Octo- 
ber, the cruel Archer of November, the filthy Goat of December, 
the nothing but the Cold Water of January to drink, and nothing 
but the Scaly Fish of February to eat. 



THE devil's pulpit. '2^1 

0, give me .plenty of the blood of the Covenant, and the Devil 
may have the water wherein *' Christ is the end of the law, to thera 
that believe." Bui Jesus is the other end of the law, to thera that 
understand. 

" I know in whom I have believed,*' says the old wag, and am 
persuaded, that he is able to keep that which I have committed 
unto him, against that day. 

In whom had he believed ? the Sun. 

What had he committed to him ? the seed sown in the earth. 

Against what day ? why, the day of judgment. 

When the Sun, in the Scales of September, shall weigh out "to 
every man according to his work ; and whatsoever a man hath 
sown, that shall he also reap." 

Look then at that masonic arch. 

Its pillars are faith and Charity. 

Its key-stone is Hope. 

The husbandman must sow in Faith, live in Hope, and reap in 
Charity. 

And why are those who cultivate the earth always called Hus- 
hanchnen? Because, in allegorical language, they are married to 
the Virgin of August, to whom they look continually, that she 
shall bring forth their children. 

Faith is Spring, Hope is Summer, Charity is Autumn. 

Spring is the Covenant of Works, because Faith and Works 
must come together. 

Autumn is the Covenant of Grace, because then, the works of 
husbandry are over, and a man has to enjoy the free gift of the 
Sun's bounty. Then, 

*' What blessings his free bounty gives, 
Let us not cast away ; 
For God is paid when man receives, 
To enjoy is to obey." 

But Hope, the key-stone of the royal arch, the most mysterious 
of these ingenious hieroglyphs, hath for its object the resurrection 
of the dead. The resurrection of what dead ? 

None other, Sirs, than the seeds which are sown in Faith, and 
which are to be reaped in Charity — that is, buried in the Earth, 
in Spring, to be found again in the abundant returns of Autumn. 

And here. Sirs, is the common solution of the masonic riddle 
of seeking for Hiram Abiff, of the mythological search of Cores 
for Proserpine, of Isis for Osiris, and all the linlc-and-scvk nonsen.^e, 
and bo-peep fooleries, which have been called mysteries, siinctitit's, 
sohnmilij-s, awful considerations, sacred, secret, holy balderdash, 



272 THE devil's pulpit. 

which they have adhered to, as if they had thought that reason 
tvas given to them for no other end than to employ all their inge- 
Quity, labour, and skill, to get rid of it. 

While all the mystery of our text, so hideous, so monstruous, 
50 filthy, in the best sense that ever was, or could be given to it by 
those who are going about to get me immured in a dungeon, and 
cut of from the cheerful ways of men, as unworthy to exist in so- 
ciety : doth in this illustration come up to a dignity and grandeur 
which their sanctified idiotcy never dreamed of which their igno 
ranee would not understand, and their malice would not endure. 

The blood of bulls and goats, the blood of crabs and fishes, the 
blood of any one of the animals whose imagicary forms inclose the 
groups of Stars which constitute the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, 
were each in turn, as efficacious for the salvation of mankind, aa 
the blood of Christ, as the ashes of an heifer — that is, those 
bright-burning and inextinguishable sparks w^hich make up the 
form of the Bull of the Zodiac, sanctified — that is, sunnified, to 
the purification — that is, fireification, impregnating with the crea- 
tive heat of the solar fire, the flesh, or animal food which the Sun 
creates for us. But this, and these, only had their efficacy — that 
is, their astronomical accuracy, as symbols of science, according 
as the two Covenants — that is, the point of the Vernal Equinox, 
the Covenant of Works and the Autumnal — that is, the Covenant 
of G-race, was in one or other of these signs. These Covenants 
change every 1253 years. Hence the term, the Xew Covenant, and 
the Blood of the Covenant, is always the juice of the grape, which 
is always ripe when the Sun is at the Autumnal Covenant, where- 
ever that Covenant may fall : and this blood has always the effi- 
cacy of purifying our consciences — that is, firing, or warnaing our 
minds from dead works — that is, of refreshing us after the labour 
of sowing the seed, which is sown in hope of a glorious resurrec- 
tion at harvest. 

And for this cause, Christ is the Mediator of the New Testa- 
ment — that is, most literally, he goes between our earth, and the 
Autumnal Equinoctial point, which is the New Covenant. 

That, by means of death — that is, being crucified, and ducking 
under the Equator, he might redeem and fetch up the stars which 
were in a state of transgression, by being under the line of the first 
Covenant. 

That, they which are called — that is, the stars of the first and 
second magnitude, which the astronomers call by distinct names, 
might receive the promise of eternal inheritance — that is, the eter- 
nal duration of the universe, that so long as the Sun and Moon 



THE devil's pulpit. 273 

endureth, " seed time and harvest, summer and winter, day and 
night, shall not fail." 

And thus, Sirs, have I given you a rational sense of words, for 
which I defy your spiritual pastors and masters to give any sense 
at all. 

And this, if I am again to be the victim of the savages of the 
gospel, will be my proof, that under the pretext of suppressing 
what they call blasphemy, — their hostility is directed solely against 
learning, which they cannot equal, and science, which is too unpro- 
fitable and excellent for them to seek or to attain. 

*' Felix qui potnit rerum cognoscere causas, 
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 
Subjecit pedibus ; strepitumq; Acherontis avari." 

Georgic. lib. ii 499. 

Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws, 
Thro' known effects can trace the secret cause ; 
His mind possessing in a quiet state, 
Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate. 



IND OF THE THIRD LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 



274 THE devil's pulpit, 



NOTICE. 



The reporter takes leave to remark, in the space unoccupied by tho lecture, 
that the trial of the Rev. Mr. Taylor will have terminated before the next pubhca- 
tion of this work. On Monday, July 4,* will be decided whether the champion ol 
free pubhc discussion on religious subjects is to be tolerated, or whether his staunch 
defender of the Deity from the really Uasphemous imputation of blunder and cruelty, 
is to be again incarcerated, at the instance of a Society of ignorant Fanatics — the 
cat's-paw of another body, who dare not risk their own fingers near the fire of cri- 
ticism, to obtain their object — in other words, the change of refutation of their 
mistranslated (but highly paid-for) doctrines. A body who coald beat down reason 
and philosophy with the club of the law, and convert the sword of Justice into the 
stiletto of the assassin. The masked freebooters call for the aid of the law of the 
land — for what"? To punish the disturber of the peace of their places of worship? 
Xo. But to shield the asserted truth of their doctrines from observation, and to 
stifle inquiry. The law of the land ! ! The persecutors of Galileo and Copernicus 
were sanctioned by the law of the land — the discoverers (.') and persecutors of wi- 
zards and witches were held guiltless, and the victims of bigotry, after a mock trial 
by a Puritanical jury, were hung and burnt, by a law of this land ; nay, the Re- 
formers of some of the corruptions of the present most holy Christian Church, 
were hung, burnt, banished, or imprisoned by the aforesaid law of the land. 

The attempt of the church to draw on government, its former coadjutor, for 
aid, at once proclaims its political connexion, notwithstanding the assertion oi 
Earl Grey, on Tuesday se'nnight, in reply to the inquiry of the Saintly Lord Wharn- 
clifl'e. if his Majesty's Ministers would extend the accustomed aid to the Established 
Church? " Government," he said, would continue to afford its support to the 
Church, in return for the zeal and attention with which it discharged its duties [to 
whora?] , and on account of the superior iiERiT of its religious instruction."* — (A 
merit not allowed to be questioned, forsooth) — -Bah ! Merit needs not the protec- 
tion here sought — it has nothing to loose by investigation, and everything to gain 
by publicity — it seeks no other patron or protector than the majesty of Truth. 

The Noble Earl, however, assured the Xoble Querist that he '-disclaimed the 
idea of a political union with the Church ;" observing, " that its members had very 
seldom exercised that power with advantage to themselves (?) , and often [q. always] 
with great detriment to the public, "f 

Candidly expressed. And he might have as truly added, that, in the contested 
endeavours to prop up the Christian Church, more lives have been sacrificed, more 
cruelty practiced, more philosophers imprisoned, more wealth expended, more 
famine created, and more uncharitable feelings generated, than in all the other war- 
fares of mankind put together, since the period of its introduction. 

And yet, oh, consistency ! this Parliament-Reforming Peer suffers the Law 
Officer of the Crown, in despite of his opinion, to prosecute the Rev. Robert Taylor, 
in the name of the King, for blasphemy, i. e., the development of Truth, which, 
the indictment says, is a " scandal to Almighty God. — a contempt of our Lord the 
King, — and an evil example to all his liege subjects." 

* A writ of certiorari was appHed for, but refused ! Arraignment at the felon 
bar, being thought more degirading, and the verdict wished for more secure. (?) 

f Jurors — ye whose names will hereafter be associated with the honour of quit- 
ting, or Avith the odium of confining, this persecuted philosopher, mark this 
admission of the Premier. 



THE devil's pulpit. 2*15 

If the framers of this stupid, drivelling production — the indictment — be not 
blasphemers and libellers intentionally, in proffering their pigmy might to assist 
the Almighty God to punish the Reverend John Taylor, they can hardly be acquit- 
ted of folly, in supposing that by putting down the leader of a peaceable assembly, 
(who, not believing according to law, argues according to reason) they can stop the 
growth of his opinions. No. They have taken root too firmly to be eradicated by 
their feeble grasp. They may " scotch, but cannot kill the snake. '^ 

The prosecuted Discourses are to be found in pp. 209 and 222 of this work ; 
and the Reporter takes this opportunity to inform the readers of the pulpit, that 
notes of all the Rev. Gentleman's Discourses have been taken up to the present 
time, and will be published, in the order of their delivery, weekly. Mr. Taylor has 
given notice of his intention to deliver the substance of his intended Defence, at 
the Rotunda, four times this week,* which will also be carefully noted. Thus sub- 
scribers to the Devils Pulpit will possess, even though their instructor be again im- 
mured in a dungeon, a volume of astronomical information, unequalled by any 
writer on the subject in ancient or modern times. 

It must occur to every one, when made acquainted with the fact, that the King 
(whose name is a bugbear in the service), if defeated, pays no costs, that the ex- 
penses falUng on the defendant, are themselves sufficient to crush an unwealthy 
individual. The Rev. Robert Taylor is not rich. The Road to Wealth he left to 
walk in the Path of Truth, — or, as his persecutors would be glad to believe, the 
Road to Ruin. An opportunity for his friends to assist him in his journey, and 
enable him to overcome the obstacles to its accomplishment — and, indeed, to all 
who value, and would contend for, the right of toleration — is now open, by 
promptly subscribing to pay the law expenses of this prosecution. The Reporter 
is authorised to state, that subscriptions for that purpose will be received at the 
Rotunda, and at the house of Mr. CarHle, 62, Fleet street ; a weekly acknowledg- 
ment of which will be inserted in " The Prompter." 

Whatever the result of the trial may be, it is confidently hoped that the his- 
torian of another age will not have to add, when recording the persecution of this 
jcientific Expounder of Scripture Astronomy, the desertion of his followers, when 
their aid was needed and solicited. 

June 28, 1831. 



* The policy of this proceeding may be questioned by many, as giving advantage 
to the enemy. This the Rev. Gentleman, however, seems to disregard : and 
appears only anxious that the truth and justice of his defence should be pub- 
licly appreciated, wholly disregarding the consequences to himself ; thinking, 
perhaps, 

' ' Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just." 

May it so turn out. 



THE DiVIL'S PIPIT. 



"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS:'— Allan Cunningham. 

LECTURE ON FREE MASONRY. 

PART IV. 

DELIVERED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, APRIL 24, 1831. 

" Now the God of Peaces that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that Great Shephard of the Sheep, through the 
blood of the everlasting Covenant, make you perfect in every 
good work to do his will, working in you that which is well 
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ : to whom be glory 
for ever and ever, Ammon.^' — Hebrews xiii. 20. 

I RETURN, without preamble, to the stage of our process in the 
last discourse on these words. 

The name Jupiter is etymologically composed of what Dean 
Swift has ignoraotly represented as a pun on the word, the Jew, 
Peter. 

The word Jewee, or J eve, being the very word which we pro- 
nounce Jehovah, or Jove ; and which (see erratum) P'ree Masons 
pronounce Jave, and say, it is the name by which they know the 
Grand Architect of the universe. From the order of perfect ma- 
sons being permitted to pronounce this name of God, they acquired 
the distinction of being called the people of God, and took to them- 
selves, or received from others, the name which they had given to 
God : and so arose the sect called the Jewess or Jews. The word 
Peter, which signifies a Stone, added to the name of God, Jew, 
making the whole title of Jupiter, most emphatically expressed, as 
God the Great Architect. 

As we find it was the Sun, who really is the Great Architect, 
who, in all ages and countries was emblemized and worshipped 
under the character of a Stone, 



THE devil's pulpit. 21*1 

Christ in the gospel, confers this title on the chief of the apostles, 
the Jew Peter. 

*' I say unto thee that thou art Peter, which is by interpreta- 
tion a Stone." 

The chief of the apostles returns the compliment to Jesus 
Christ, by calling him the Chief Stone of the Corner. 

Thus the epithet, a Stone, was common, both to Jupiter, the 
Jew Peter, and the Jew, Jesus. 

But the epithet Ammon, added to both the names of Jupiter 
and Jesus, as they are, when fuliy pronounced Jupiter Ammon, 
and Jesus Christ Amen, demonstrates their absolute identity, as 
neither the one nor the other ever meant anything else than Sol, 
the Sun, the word Amon, being composed of the two primitives, 
AM, the Heat or Warmth ; on, the Bevag, 

And this Heat or Warmth of the Sun, being missing, or hid- 
den, or concealed, during the winter months, all nature was sup- 
posed to be engaged in seeking for Ammon, and the priests ex- 
pressed this sense very beautifully in those words : " Venly thou 
art a God that hideth thyself, God of Israel, the Saviour." 

But where the devil is he to hide himself, when he is every 
where present ? Why look ye. Sirs, most geometrically, most astro- 
nomically under the earth, by descending, as the apostle calls it, 
into the lower farts of the earth — that is, by the earth presenting 
that part of which ye inhabit from the Sun. 

Hence the physical consistency, and universal usage, of those 
who seek after God, seeking him upon their knees, as if they would 
scratch him out of the ground with their nails : and calling him 
byname, Ammon, Amen, Aumen, Omen: and even, sometimes, 
giving him a good scolding for lying in bed so long, as you read in 
the 44th Psalm : " Up Lord ! Why sleepest thou ! Awake, and be 
not absent from us for ever: Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and 
forgettest our misery and trouble .*" And in the 89th Psalm, you 
find the Psalmist giving him a complete Billingsgate ragging, 
calling him a liar, and asking him, if he's not ashamed of him- 
self. '^ How long, Lord, will you hide yourself? For ever? 
Where are your loving kindnesses which you sware unto David in 
your truth." 

Thus the order of Free Masons, called Jews, scattered as they 
were, through all periods of their existence, took a pride in calling 
themselves by the name of the (^reat Architect, Jew — that is Cod, 
never meaning anything else than the Sun itself. 

While the inferior orders of Masons, analogous to what are now 
called the Entered Apprentices, the Christians, were content to be- 
lieve, that Christ, their God, actually resided in them : and 



278 THE devil's pulpit. 

A.S by Christ, was never meant any thing else than Sol, the 
oun, that Latin name of the Sun, the Sol, pronounced for the 
greater reverence, the Soul, gave origin to the mystical belief that 
every Christian has an immortal soul in him. And thus, physi- 
cally, and not metaphysically, ''Christ doth dwell in us, and we in 
him ; we are one with Christ, and he with us." And hence Chris- 
tians, not only pray to God, as the Soul or Sol of the universe, but 
to the soul's vital heat, or warmth within them. ^'Praise the Lord 
my Sol, and all that is within me, praise his holy name: why 
art thou heavy, my Sol, and why art thou so disquieted within 
me .?" And where the Sol — that is, the Sol's vital heat leaves 
men's bodies, notwithstanding the immortality of the Soul, the 
common phrase is, that so many Souls perished — that is, not in the 
gross, and mad conceit, that the Sun's body, or orb, is actually in 
us : but he dwelleth in us, as the apostle needfully explains by his 
spirit, which he hath given us — that is, by his vital warmth and 
heat — that is, most literally, by the Amen — that is, Am the heat, 
or caloric ; On, of the Being, as distinguished from Jesus, which is 
I, the One, es, the fire, which is the Sun itself. 

Hence, with the most accurate analogy, the Scriptures never 
speak of Jesus being in us ; but the phrase always is, that it is 
Christ that dwelleth in us, that is not the Sun's Orb, but the Sun's 
heat and warmth, which what it is, and all that it ever meant, the 
apostle puts beyond all doubt in that most express definition to the 
Colossians iii. 3, ^^ Christ, who is our life :^' and for me to live is 
Christ : or, as Christ the principle of vitality, allegorically speaks 
of himself, ''I am the Resurrection and the Life." And this life in 
us, is kept up and increased, and can only be supplied, by continued 
and repeated taking of the Sacrament of the body and blood of 
Christ — that is, by good eating and drinking. And I only wish 
that those who are so anxious to give the poor the gospel, were 
but half as anxious to give 'em the Sacrament. 

"For except we eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood, we 
have no life in us." 

"He that hath the Sun hath life, and he that hath not the Sun 
of God, hath not life." 

The difference between the Sun, and the Sun of God, being 
only that the Sun is the great Solar fire, as spoken of abstractedly.: 
and the Sun of God is the same Solar Orb, as spoken of in relation 
to his apparent position at the Yernal Equinox, from whence all 
time was reckoned to begin : and when he appears to be in the 
tribe of God — that is, the constellation, called Aries, the Kara, or 
Lamb. 

And from which position, from which the whole year was 



THE devil's pulpit. 279 

reckoned to begin, the Sun receives that truly magnificent epithe- 
ton, '-Our Lord Jesus Christ, that Great Shepherd of the Sheep : 
and hence it is, the Sun itself, who, speaking in his allegorical 
character, calls himself so repeatedly Verily, Verily : Yer being the 
well-known Latin word, for the Spring, the Yernal Equinox. And 
this so emphatically, and twenty times repeated " Verily, Verily, 
I say unto you," does not mean truly or really, but the very con- 
trary — that is, figuratively, Vernally, Verily — that is, in the char- 
acter of the Vernal Sun. (I, &c.) 

"I am the beautiful Shepherd, and I know my Sheep, and I am 
known of mine." o 7T0L[j.r]v o KaXog, the Shepherd, the beautiful. 
Our English translation shirks out of the sense of the original, in 
order to conceal the identity of the sweet Jesus of the gospel, and 
the beautiful Adonis of the mythology, "the beautiful Shepherd 
layeth down his life for the Sheep. '^ 

Why, look Sirs, to the best sense your clergy could ever give 
you of such a catachresis, and say if the walls of a madhouse ever 
resounded to the echo of greater nonsense ! 

Here's the world turned topsy-turvy. Here's the sheep taking 
care of the shepherd, and we're to eat the butcher instead of the 
mutton. 

But how beautiful, how sublime, how magnificent is science. 
Listen, I beseech you, to her sacred voice, in the personated char- 
acter of the Great Shepherd : 

^'No man taketh my life from me ; bat I lay it down of myself . 
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.^' 

What is his life but his vital warmth and heat? When does 
he lay it down, but when entering into the Scales of September, he 
satisfies the Justice of Heaven, by giving to men the reward of 
their works in cultivating the earth, in full measure of the Corn of 
August, and the full ripened Grapes of September ? And there 
Sirs, when the Sun is in the Scales of September, where was the 
point of the coming together of the Sun's oblique path in the 
Ecliptic, upon the straight line of the Equator — that is, most liter- 
ally, in the Autumnal Covenant, there stands the Cup of Salvation, 
into which he every year sheds his most precious blood, the rich 
juice of the grape, therefore called the Blood of the Cross, and the 
Blood of the Everlasting Covenant, and the Blood of the Crape, 
and of the True Vine, and of God, and of Jesus, and of Adonis, 
and Bacchus. 

And there the Amen, the faithful and true martyr, or witness, 
having fulfilled all the promises of the year, and irji.iid all the toils 
of agriculture, lays down his vital heat, and titscoiids U'h)w the 
line of the Equator into that Hell beneath, in the gate of which 



280 THE devil's pulpit. 

you see, stands the ugly Scorpion of October, that "wuiin that 
never dieth,'' to pledge to you that encouraging truth, that though 
Ammon be hidden or concealed, Christ still liveth, though the ca 
loric, or vital heat, appears to be greatly diminished, yes, ''thejire 
is not quenched.'^ 

The Sun, that seemed to give up his life into the power of those 
infernal Scorpions, having stings in their tails, to whom it was 
given to hurt the earth five months, will rise again in the Constel- 
lation of the Ram, with healing in his beams : and he who was our 
Saviour in Autumn, becomes our Redeemer in Spring. Hence, 
says the Apostle, speaking of the Sun in the Scales of September, 
*^It is God that justifieth.'' Who is he that condemneth? ^'It is 
Christ that died.'' But that was a mistake. It was not Christ 
that died, — the apostle immediately corrects the error, by saying, 
*'Nay, rather that is risen ;" because Jesus is the Autumnal, and 
Christ the Yernal Sun. It is Jesus, therefore, that dies, and Christ 
that rises : and Jesus dying to redeem the chosen sheep is but an- 
other version of the story of Jason, sailing to fetch back the Golden 
Fleece. 

All calculations of time, being made from the commencement 
of the Spring Quarter, when the Sun, appearing in the sheep, is so 
beautifully called the Shepherd of Israel, and so sublimely addressed 
in the 81st. Fsalm : ^^Hear, thou Shepherd of Israel^ thou that 
leadest Joseph like a sheep, show thyself/'' Where you see the idea 
of leading, is expressed in terms, as it is involved in the Greek 
word for sheep, ajpo^arov from (opo^acvG), to go before, or to go 
first ; thus demonstrating the Sheep of Christ never to have meant 
any other than the Sheep of the Zodiac, which is the first or leading 
constellation. 

All calculations being made by means of counting off of little 
stones, to help the memory, which were calculi, from whence our 
word calculate, to count or reckon up, is derived. Each particular 
stone was to represent the unity, or single idea required to be re- 
presented ; and so, by necessary association of idea, got the name 
of the thing so represented, and shared in the respect attached to 
that idea. 

It required, then, twelve stones to represent the twelve signs 
of the Zodiac. And as the first of these was the constellation of 
the Ram or Sheep, the Stone that represented this, could, of course, 
be none other than a precious Stone, the chief Corner Stone. 

And the Sun always being associated with the sign which he 
was in, the Sun in the Sheep, was called the Shepherd of the Sheep ; 
and so they represented him as a devilish big Stone. And thus 
get you the solution of that conundrum of the dying Jacob, which 



THE devil's pulpit. 281 

I am sure Done of your clergy could solve for you, in the 49tli Ge- 
nesis, "Fro?7* hence is the Stone the Shepherd of Israel.^' Thus the 
worship of Stones, Litholatry, grew up with Heliolatry, or Sun 
Worship, because the barbarous savages, who were always the ma- 
jority, found it easier to settle the matter at once, by worshipping 
the Stones themselves, than to bother their brains by inquiring what 
t was that the Stones represented. 

But when calculation came to be superseded by arithmetic — 
that is, when it was found, that little pictures, or hieroglyphical 
marks, would represent unities, quite as well as Stones, and would 
not be in danger of being put out of their places ; and so to subject 
the unity which they represented to be forgotten, or the one mista- 
ken for the other, those scrabblements, or marks, were necessarily 
determined by some sort of resemblance to the thing to be repre- 
sented. 

And then, in the forms of the nine digits, and the cipher or 
nought that follows them, and to which nought is ascribed the 
peculiar property of recalling the whole nine to itself, we discover 
what is was, that was the common basis both of religion and science ; 
and their common origin in Egypt, the cradle of them both. There, 
the Nile overflowing their country, through three months of the 
year, during which the world was believed annually to be drowned, 
the remaining nine were deemed only worthy of especial notation. 

To these, the poet consecrated the Nine Muses, with Apollo in 
the midst of them : while the mathematicians more soberly gave 
them the names of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and nought at the end of 
them ; and they are honoured in the 68th Psalm, under the title of 
*Hhe damsels playing upon the timbrels^'' with God in the midst 
of them. 

The number One, the most simple of all forms, has all the prop- 
erties in arithmetic with which imagination invests the deity of 
theology, and is represented by a straight stroke standing perpen- 
dicularly upon the line of the Equator. 

In all the languages of the earth, its name has ever been the 
sarae as the name of the Supreme Deity. The One — ung, un, une, 
fiv, ov^ of all tongues, of all nations, in all ages, betrays but the 
Taried utterance of the primitive Egyptian worth on, the Being. 

Nor has there been any name invented for the Supreme Being, 
of which the first engraven character was not the letter I, as in 
Jove, Jupiter, Jehovah, Jason, Janus, Jesus. 

The moral idea, deriving itself from the physical one, godliness 
and uprightness are synonymous terms. An upright man, acting 
with the greatest simplicity and straigtforwardncss, was the moral 
reflection of the physical God. While the epithet, the upright » 



282 THE devil's pulpit. 

par excellence, "the upright Lord," "the righteous God," "the Lord 
most upright," "Jesus Christ the righteous," were the peculiar 
designations of the Eternal One — that is, of the One-God, as dis- 
tinguished from the two- God, the three-God, the four-God, and all 
the rest of the Gods. 

When a small stroke was added to the top of the figure, and 
another at the bottom, the bottom stroke represented the line of 
the Equator, and the top the line of the tropic of Cancer, the Sun's 
highest point of ascension, while the whole pillar was a natural 
Almanac of the Sun's latitude, or north declination, for every day 
from the Spring Quarter, to Midsummer-day. 

It was a great improvement when the straight stroke was set 
aslant : because then, it not only represented the Sun's declination, 
but it represented the line of the Ecliptic — that is, of the Sun's 
apparent path, at the precise angle, which that path forms on the 
line of the Equator. 

The Greeks improved this hieroglyph ; and having represented 
this path of the Sun aslant, as it is in nature, they elongated the 
ornamental cornice at the top, to the left, and the little pedestal 
at the bottom, to the right, thus Z. So that these lines being 
perfectly parallel, represented the upper one, the line of the tropic 
of Cancer, the Sun's highest point of Ascension : the lower one, 
the line of the Equator, on which the whole figure stands, and 
which is perfectly parallel with the line of the tropic of Cancer. 

But out, alas ! in this modification, science was outrunning 
orthodoxy, — the figure was no longer an I, but it is a Zed. It no 
longer expresses the simple and abstract idea of unity or oneness, 
— but here are three strokes for your one. 

Your patience, bunglers ! look again ! and you will see that 
these three are one, and each of them is separately and distinctively 
a perfect one. And you have a trinity in unity, a Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost in one undivided and indivisible God-Aeac?. 

Of which, this sloping line, the Sun's path, the line of the 
Ecliptic, is God the Father ; this (the upper one, the line of the 
tropic of Cancer) is God the Holy Ghost, sitting, as where should 
he else, on the head of God the Father, as his inspiring wisdom and 
science. 

This (the One standing in the line of the Equator) is God the 
Son, the Lord our Righteousness ; who, as you see, leaving the 
glory — that is, the brightness which he had with the Father, when 
he floated in the line of the Equator, like a swan upon a fish-pond, — 
"did, for us men and for our Salvation, come down from Heaven," 
as the Sun, dropping below the Equator, from the point of the 



THE DEVILS PULPIT. 283 

Autumnal Equinox, has every year to make the round of the gloomy 
months of October, November, December, and January. 

As you see him, thus 3, giving a tail to the letter Zed, you see 
together, the three ones, of which each is separately an 07ie, — the 
whole figure, representing the One God, and thereby hangs a tale." 

The Greeks, in adopting this more scientific hieroglyph, adopt- 
ed at the same time a softened utterance of the name of God, and 
Jew, the vocative utterance of God ! is in Greek Zev, the Zed 
being substituted for the J, and the elegant utterance of TjEV Jlarep, 
superseded the coarse sounding Jew Peter, the original basis of the 
name of the Oi^e-God, Jupiter. 

The two-God, as represented by the figure 2, is a picture of the 
Sun, in the second of the constellations, called Taurus, the God 
Baal of the Scriptures, vitiated in our English utterance into the 
word the Bull, which the Sun enters in April 19. 

And this little dot (.) is the Bull's Eye, the Star of the first 
magnitude, called Aldeharan, an Arabic word, signifying the One 
Eye, from which the Sun, setting off about the 19th of April, 
throws off his arch, to the height of reaching the tropic — that is, 
Midsummer-day, from which whirls round the nobly-arched shoul- 
ders of the animal, to the line of the Equator, which is so much 
below the parallel of the Bull's Eye, — as it is longer from Mid- 
summer to Michaelmas than from April the 19th to Midsummer : 
and there he sits on the Equator, as thus 2, with his knees turned 
under him, like an ox in a meadow, calmly chewing the cud. And 
so, if T am depriving you of the sugar-plums of the gospel, I give 
you the Bull's Eye of philosophy. 

3. Here is the three-God, the Sun in Gemini, the Twins of May, 
the shining brothers, Castor and Pollux, of whom one represented 
tiie human, and the other the divine nature in the person of Christ. 

Castor was the human, Pollux was the divine nature : and so 
great was their love for each other, that Pollux was not content 
with his own immortality, without obtaining permission from Ju- 
piter to share it with his mortal brother, and the boon was granted 
upon the condition, that Castor should fetch his brother Poll out 
of Hell, by coming down from Heaven to convert him — that is, to 
turn him up, and to stand in his place. So that the one was to be 
in Heaven, — the other in Hell. 

Here then is Castor, a pretty little spark, about the 1 9th May. 
Observe his history ! he whirls himself round on his axis, with a 
very little ascension to the height of the tropic, from which you 
trace his quadrant of a circle, resting on the Equator, at thu point 
of the Autumnal Equinox, thus? 



284 THE devil's pulpit. 

Now then for a leap into the dark : now Castor go and fetch 
your brother Poll ; you are not the first Saint that went out of the 
world by means of a line. 

"Down, down to Hell ; and say I sent thee thither." 

See him passing through what remains of September, getting 
into October, thicker, deeper, darker grow the days : this is Hell 
itself. Bat this is not the worst on't ; he must not only go to Hell, 
but he must go to Hell and Tommy, who is at the bottom of the 
bottomless pit. 

Saint Thoman's-day, Sirs, which is the 21st of December, the 
lowest point to which the Sun can possibly descend the tropic of 
Capricorn. 

Well, then, I have brought my little Castor to the lowest pit of 
Hell, in search after his brother Foil : and behold Poll is not here. 
]\[ethinks I hear the distress of the heavenly brother, crying out, 
*' Where are you Polly : my poor Poll !" but patience, my pretty 
boy ! turn round the bottom Hell, clear the tropic of Capricornus, 
ascend as the days grow lighter as far as to the 25tb of January, 
and at that point exactly you will find your brother Poll ; exactly 
answering to this map of the whole adventure, which is the figure 
3. And for that reason, and none other it is, that on that day, 
the 25th of January, the church has fixed the festival of the con- 
version of Saint Paul, just one month from Christmas-day. 

And Castor recognizes his brother Pollux, in Hell, by his black 
eye, which he got in boxing, from whence his name Pollux, which 
signifies a pugilist : and his type, the black eye, which terminates 
the figure. And it is even none other than the God Pollux, defined 
by the black eye, as being the bruised, whom Christ, in the 4th 
of Luke, declares himself sent to deliver. "He hath sent me to 
preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that 
are bruised. And if you go to Hell, you must look to get bruised 
too ; for, depend on't you'll have to box Arry, before you get out 



The two dots, then, of the figure 3, are the one, the Summer, 
and the other the Winter Sun, the break being the line of the 
Equator, cutting the figure at about one-third above and twothirds 
below. 

The 4 God is the unambiguous combination of the oblique line 
of the Ecliptic, standing upon the horizontal line of the Equator, 
with the line of the Equator marked ofi", with the thick black line 
which measures on the Equator, so much of it as the Sun shines 
upon, and fixes the point of the Autumnal Equinox, where the Sun 
must be crucified. 



THE devil's pulpit. 285 

The 5 God is a most beautiful orrery, exhibiting the line of the 
Ecliptic, from the top of which, which is the Summer Solstice, 
runs off the line of the tropic of Cancer, and from the bottom of 
which, which is the Equator, at the point of the Autumnal Equi- 
nox, from below which, bellies round the course of the Sun, through 
October, November, December, where you see him having passed 
the tropic of Capricorn, which is the line on which the whole figure 
stands, with his eye shut, and his nightcap on, a perfect hieroglyph 
of the phcenomena of the Sun on the 25th of January ; and, there- 
fore, another hieroglyph of the conversion of St. Paul. 

The 6 God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is open to all believers ; 
you have the Sun's full and open disk standing upon the line of the 
Equator, whirling himself into rotundity upon his own axis, and 
by that whirl throwing off from his own body the mighty vault of 
his reign through the Summer months, where you see him, as an 
elegant little spark, just having turned the tropic of Cancer, on the 
2d of July, come to pay his addresses to his intended wife, the Vir- 
gin of August, the Lamb's wife, Mrs. Lamb that is to be ; and here 
it is, on none other than this 2d of August, the church fixes the 
festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary. 

The Seven God — i. e., the God of Sabaoth, the 7, presents you 
with the horizontal line of the Equator, marked oS" at the begin- 
ning, to show you the point of the Vernal Equinox, and terminated 
at the point of the Autumnal Equinox, from which the Sun drops 
below the Equator, and carries his dark thick gloomly tail, grow- 
ing only thicker and thicker, into the lower regions, and no turn or 
dot indicating where the Hell he was going to. 7 is the great 
mystical number, the hieroglyph of all ignorance ; and consequently, 
the parent of all devotion. 

It being an universal law, that men never consider any thing 
so sacred as that which they know nothing about. Remember the 
Seven, to keep it holy 

The 8 God is the Summer and the Winter Sun, meeting toge- 
ther, — the one above, the other below the line of the Equator, 
precisely at the point of the Autumnal Equinox, making that cross 
at which the Justice of God is satisfied, by pouring forth of the 
fierceness of his wrath, into the Cup of Salvation, and in which 
reconciliation, or coming together, "Mercy and Truth are met 
together ; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other." That 
kissing annually taking place, as then it did, upon the pretty lips 
of the Virgin of August, which is the 8th month of the year, though 
more accurately defined by Saint Luke, as the Virgin of the Sixth 
Month, when March is considered as the fire. 

'J'he 9 God is the Sun standing with open and tranquil disk 



286 THE devil's pulpit. 

upon the Equator, from which he throws off his substance, by a 
voluntary suicide to go and redeem the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel. 

For he only laid down his life that he might take it again ; and 
to those who love his appearing, shall he appear the second time, 
and I hope, a many times, without Sin unto Salvation. 

As there he stands, like a scale or steel-yard, the ball at the 
upper end, vaioly endeavouring to bear up the weight which pulls 
it below the balance at the Equator, 9, the unequivocal hieroglyph 
of the ninth month ; and the last of the reign of the Frince of 
Princes. 

The God is the Sun itself, or the whole circling year, placed 
at the end of all numbers, to multiply them by tea — that is, to recall 
the whole to itself. 

Our English word yeae, to which the letter r at the end is 
superfluous, is nothing more than a drawling pronunciation of the 
word yea or yes, of which the meaning is the same as Amen, and 
the derivation the same as that of the name Yesus, which is Jesus. 

And thus you see. Sirs, that religion is nothing more than 
science, most monstrously misunderstood : and science is religion, 
properly and wisely explained. 

If I have not yet done it, I shall develop, that Sun worship, 
obscured by the wintry mists of religious ignorance, that true hell 
upon earth, is the secret of all sacred Scriptures, and of all religious 
and mysterious associations. 



END OF LECTUBE ON FREE MASONRY. 



ERRATUM. 

By an oversight of the compositor, an errror occured in the last 
number of the Devil's Pulpit ; the moral of which, as an error, has 
this week been repeated at the Surrey Sessions. 

The last sentence of the fourth paragraph, on page 266, was 
deficient of a member, which, when supplied, will show that the 
Surrey justices were deficient of three members, or knowledge, law, 
and justice, which should be in office with them. The sentence was 
thus spoken : — 



THE devil's pulpit. 287 

A DIRTY TRICK THAT, SIRS, WHEN THEY DARED 
NOT ATTEMPT 10 GRAPPLE WITB THE MAN'S AR- 
GUMENT, TO FASTEN THEIR SPITEFUL FANGS ON 
THE MAN ! 

• Was Dot this prophetic ? Is not the Devil's Chaplain a man 
divinely inspired ? Is he not the man whom Moore's Ahnanac has 
prophesied, as to this year, as certain to overthrow the bishops, to 
set the king right on the subject of religion, to overthrow all the 
corruptions of the Christian religion, and to re-establish, at the same 
time, the Original and the New Jerusalem ? Is not the Reverend 
Robert Taylor the man ? He is now in Hell ; but he shall rise 
again on the third day. There are not more than three great days 
at a time, as a temporal emblem of the Trinity and Unity. Such 
were the three days of Jerusalem, after the crucifixion. Such were 
the three days in Paris, in July last. The one spiritual, the other 
temporal or real. As we, in England, have learnt, how, as politi- 
cians, to mix up spiritualities with temporalities, as is the case in 
the person of the King, in the person of the Lord Chancellor, and 
in the persons of the Bishops and Clergy generally ; so, in our ad- 
vent of the glorious resurrection, after our three days of hell fire 
we shall gloriously purge both our spiritualities and our temporali- 
ties. These are words for the wise, for the initiated, for the Royal 
Arch degree, for the people of God ; fools and gentiles will not 
understand them. They have eyes, and see not ; ears, and hear not ; 
skulls, and understand not. 

The Rev. Robert Taylor went to his mock trial on Monday, 
last, the 4th inst. ; and, being called on, addressed the chief priests 
and Jews of the Surrey Synagogue. They exclaimed, "Ae hath 
spoken blasphemy, what need we of further witnesses? Ye have 
heard this blasphemy. We have a law, and by that law he ought to 
die. For that purpose take two years' imprisonment of his per- 
son. Let him coin two hundred pounds in gold, as a fine, by the 
aid of his master, the Devil, and his philosopher's stone. And let 
him give the world a pledge of a thousand pounds agamst any 
further UwSe of his magic eloquence. Crucify him among thieves, 
and give him nought but hyssop and vinegar." See" The Prompt- 
er," No. 35, for a picture of his horrible sufferings. 



™ DiVIL'S PIJLPIT. 



"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS:'— Allan Cunningham. 

THE HOLY GHOST: 

A WHITSUNTIDE SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-KOAD, MAY 29, 1831. 

^'All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men ; 
but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven 
unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of 
Man, it shall be forgiven htm ; but whosoever speaketh agaiiist 
the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this 
world, neither in the world to come.'^ — Matthew xii, 31. 

So so, gentlemen ! then we're in for it. So stands the text, and 
not alone in Matthew xii, 31, which I have repeated ; but again, 
without any material variation, in Mark iii., 28, and Luke xii., 10, 
— so that there's no getting out of it. 

Why, what a comfortable, delightful, consolatory thing this 
gospel is ! What glad tidings of grea joy for all people. What 
infinite obligation are we under to the clergy for imparting this 
precious bit of comfort for us : as if they had thought we couldn't 
be miserable enough with all the miseries that flesh is heir to, but 
we must invite and call in the supernumerary luxuries of antici- 
pating the horrors of a red-hot hell, and everlasting brimstone, in 
another world. Lost, lost is our quiet for ever : damned must we 
be beyond the power of God the Father to save us, beyond the 
redeeming efficacy of the blood of God the Son to redeem us, 
beyond the reach of salvation itself to save uSj only, if one day we 
happened, unaware, to bolt out a naughty word against the Holy 
Ghost. Am I not justified, then, in charging the preachers of the 
gospel with being impostors, cjuacks, and deceivers of the people, 
when they preach up repentance towards God, and faith in the 



THE devil's pulpit. J ^9 

Lord Jesus Christ, as sufficient to salvation, when 'tis so evident 
that they are not sufficient? Their prescriptions do not and can- 
not reach the seat of the disease : and a man may be damned, all 
his repentance towards God, and faith in Jesus Christ, notwith- 
standiog. (The gospel is nowhere faithfully and honestly preached 
but at the Kotunda.) Their nostrums are but a chip in porridge, 
— worse than a chip in porridge ; they are actively and potently 
mischievous, and deadly poisonous, making their deceived patient 
to rest. in a false confidence, to perish, because of his confidence, to 
die of his medicine when he might have recovered of his disease. 
Nay, by the pretended medecine itself, they inflict on him the dis- 
ease which otherwise he would have escaped. For had there been 
no divine revelation at all, there would have been no sin at all, — 
and so we should have been equally free from the disease and from 
the physic. 

But as it is : and if we must be persuaded that the text of the 
New Testament, in the way in which they understand it, is the 
word of God ; Is it not handling the word of God deceitfully ? Is 
it not " crying peace, peace, when there is no peace?" Is it not a 
lie against the Holy Ghost, to talk of the blood of Christ cleansing 
from all sin, when there is a sin from which it cannot cleanse ? or 
to preach the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement, when thus it 
stands upon the record, that that atonement is not sufficient? For 
what's the use of stopping all the leaks in your leaky ship but one, 
when that one sinks you quite. 

What's the good of paying off all your creditors but the only 
one, whom you know before hand to be inexorable, who will cast 
you into prison ? and " Verily I say unto you, thou shalt in no wise 
go hence till thou hast paid the utmost farthing.'* 

Come, sinner, — come, be honest to thine own convictions, and 
venture to look for once into thine own affairs. Cast up the reckon- 
ing for the chance of thy salvation. Down with it : down with 
it ! thy spiritual assQts to meet the spiritual claims upon thee ! 
Thou'lt go to Heaven, wilt thou? when thou diest ? 'J'hou'lt be in 
better plight than the unregeuerate ? the apostate ? the infidel ? or 
the blasphemer, I suppose ? 

Thou hast a reconciled God and Father to go to ? And " being 
justified by faith, thou hast peace with God, through Jesus Christ?" 
hast thou? Ah, ah, " thy peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing," is a cheat, a fraud, a trick, a lie. 

A reconciled God, an atoning Saviour! they arc not worth a 
fig : they are of no use at all : you may be damned in spite of the 
blood of Christ to save thee, thinkest thou? Why, 'tis of loss 
reckoning than the cankered pin upon a beggar's sleeve. Look'st 

1:5 



290 THE devil's pulpit. 

unto Jesus? So looks the drowning wretch unto the distant shore, 
that mocks his misery by showing him he cannot swim to that, nor 
that to him. 

There is another, a third, and a greater power than either thy 
God or Saviour, or than them both together, whose single veto 
upon thy salvation doth render all the rest of the process a mock- 
ery of thy hopes, and an aggravation of thy despair. For the 
holy church, throughout the whole world doth acknowledge the 
Father of an infinite Majesty : his honourable, true, and only Son. 
But therewith go, " also the Holy Ghost," who, by the most cruel 
irony and sarcasm that was ever couched in language, is called, par 
eminence, " the Holy Ghost the Comforter." 

Ere I proceed to serve ye up the intellectual feast, to which I 
have invited ye, I have a grace before meat to say, from the bottom 
of my heart to the heart of every good-hearted man in th^ as- 
sembly : let him lay a honest hand upon his honest heart, and with- 
hold his Amen from the grace that I shall say, if he can do so, — 
if he can do so ! 

Hear it, all good men. 

If a wise and good man saw thousands of his fellow-creatures, 
weak-minded men, credulous women, and defenceless children, all 
of them capable of becoming reasonable, had they been reasonably 
dealt with, driven instead into incurable madness by a confederacy 
of reverend knaves and thieves, who, to serve their wicked craft, 
have set up a fiction of their own imaginations merely, and led the 
poor simpletons to quail and shudder at the thought of committing 
an unpardonable sin against the fiction, would he be the evil-dis- 
posed and wicked person who should draw up the veil of mystery, 
and show to all who were not too blind to see what a fiction it 
was, and thus turn their reverence into scorn, their fear and quail- 
ing into honest laughter, and their childish religion into manly rea- 
son ? For my exploits in this way, I have got the credit of being 
inspired by the Devil : and the clergy, who cannot defend their 
religion in any other way, are seeking to bring on me the punish- 
ment which the law assigns to blasphemy and witchcraft ; but "this 
only is the witchcraft I have used." 

So, having said grace, without further ceremony I shall fall to. 
And now for the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. 

For you may make the matter up again, and be as good friends 
as ever with God the Father, and God the Son, and blaspheme 'em 
as much as you please ; but if you only speak a word against God 
the Holy Ghost, the fat's in the fire, and you're damned to all 
eternity. 

Now, if God the Father and God the Son had really been 



THE devil's pulpit. 291 

Viends of ours, aud able to settle the business of our salvation 
oetween themselves, what place, office, or function, could a sane 
imagination imagine for so superfluous, and, at the same time, so 
mischievous a deity as the Holy Ghost ? A more ridiculous plight 
could hardly be conceived, than that of our immortal souls, all 
tight and right for salvation, as far as God and his Son could save 
'em : but to be damned and lost for ever, because there was a third 
party that required to be consulted on the occasion. But this, 
you see, is the consequence of having such a glorious constitution 
in your Kingdom of Heaven, as must consist of the three estates 
of the realm. 

Your Keform Bill is proposed by the representative of God, 
approved and sanctioned by the patriotic God, and yet you and 
your bill may be thrown out and lost, by the impertinent inter- 
ference of a third power, — the other house that you know nothing 
of, that represents no interests of yours, that's made up mainly by 
a bench of bishop's, against whom, if you but speak a word, it's 
a breach of privilege ; you are condemned without judge or jury ; 
and to Hell you go, in spite of all that God the Father and God 
the Son could do to save you. 

Nor is the predicament of God the Father, and his Son Jesus 
Christ, in this business, a whit less ridiculous than that of the 
damned soul, that had been deceived by the clergy to repose a 
vain and fruitless confidence in them. Since, if imagination is to 
have fair play, in imagining a soul damned for having committed 
the unpardonable sin ag-ainst the Holy Ghost, it is impossible not 
to imagine how God the Father and God the Son might express 
their sorrow and sympathy at such an unfortunate event. 

As with the eye of faith, methinks I see God the Father look- 
ing over Heaven Wall, down into Hell Pit, and crying, 

''Ah, poor sinner / what, are you there ?" And then waiting till 
another whiff of wind blows tbe smoke away ; " jPw sorry for ye, 
from the bottom of my heart. Pel never 'a damned you, no more 
would my Son.'' When up comes God the Holy Ghost, turns me 
God-'a-mighty round upon his beel, and thunders on him : ''Hark 
ye, my Lord God, attend to your own business ' and spare your 
mperjluous and uncalled-for pity'. You and your Son may forgive 
all manner of sin and blasphemy committed against yoiu\sclves as 
you please. But, as for my forgiving a blasphemy, a sin, a word 
a thought, a breath, against my divinity, Til see him damned Jirst 
Your propitiation for sin is no coin that shall pass in my market 
the blood of Christ may atone for snis committed against you ; but 
as for the blood of Christ, in cases of sin against me, — damn his 
blood:' 



292 THE devil's pulpit. 

It may souod strange to you, Sirs : but this is the very pith 
and gist of the argniraent ; the absolute and inevitable catastrophe 
of the supposition of an unpardoning and unforgiving God. 

And so the bishops, who have always taught us that we must 
love our enemies, and bless them that curse us, and pray for them 
that despitefully use us, have required us to love and bless, and 
pray to the Holy Ghost, the greatest enemy to us, and to our 
salvation, if there were any truth in the story, that could pos- 
sibly be. 

And by that blessed rule of contraries that runs through every 
thing of a religious nature, it is that never-pardoning, never-for- 
giving Holy Ghost, who drives men to despair, who cuts them ofi 
from all hope, and damns 'era to all eternity, only for saying the 
Lord's prayer backwards, who gets the pretty name of the Com- 
forter, and who, they say, fills "em " with all joy and peace in be- 
lieving." We were wont to understand that Job's comforters were 
none of the most comfortable comforters. But the Comforter, 
which is the Holy Ghost, outherods Herod. And after you may 
have made your peace with God, through faith in Jesus Christ, ia 
competent to step in, with his Veto upon your bill. 

This, indeed, may be sport to the infidel, and a trifle to the 
hypocrite, but. to the person who has the misfortune to be a sin- 
cere believer, it must be truly horrible. 

But to crown all ! this day, which the church appoints to be 
kept holy to the peculiar honour of this wonderful good friend of 
ours, has got the name of Whit-Sunday, that is to say, I suppose, 
Witty Sunday. 

Because the Holy Ghost is the giver of all wisdom, or wit. But 
little wit, indeed, has he given to those who believe in him, wor- 
ship him, and are frightened out of their wits, for fear they should 
commit the unpardonable sin against him, without ever having 
inquired who or what he is, or where he came from ; whether he 
was fish, flesh, bird, or beast ; whether he was masculine, feminine, 
or neuter, and how, or when, he was first heard of, or what right 
he could have to damn our souls, when we were all right enough 
with the other party. 

On all of which matters of infinite curiosity, a man who had 
the wit which a man should have, would insist on receiving the 
most ample satisfaction. 

Because, if this ^' blood and fire, and vapour of smoke," which 
we read about in the service of this Witty Sunday, should prove 
to be nothing but a bag of smoke, it may turn out that the bishops 
have been smoking us all the while ; and Whit-Sunday, instead ol 



THE devil's pulpit. 293 

beiug kept so late as the middle of May, ought to have been fixed 
for the 1st of April. 

Some of our learned divines, however tell us, that Whit-Sunday 
does not mean Whit-Sunday ; it being the universal rule in matters 
of divinity, that a thing never means what it means, but Whit- 
Sunday means White Sunday. And I dare say it does ; though, if 
it had not been for the sound of the thing, it would have been 
quite as witty to have called it Blue Sunday, or Yellow Sunday, or 
Green Sunday, — so it had never been forgotten that Greenwich 
Fair is the day afterwards. 

But the colour of the day could only be derived from some 
analogy to the colour of the mind. And white, which was always 
the emblem of simplicity, because it is the easiest to be put upon : 
and so the forty-year-old babies have been as much overawed by 
the terrors of White Sunday, as ever were the ten-year-olds by the 
thought of Black Monday. 

Whit Sunday is also called the day of Pentecost, because the word 
Trevrrjxoarogj is the Greek for Quinquagedrrms — that is thefiftiethy 
and this day is the fiftieth from Easter — that is, from the day of 
the Jewish Pass-over, and the Christian Cross-over, and the astro- 
nomical Go-over — that is, from the day when the Sun in the Ecliptic 
passes over, crosses over, or goes over the line of the Equator, at the 
time of the Yernal Equinox. 

Notwithstanding the pretended celebration of this festival, in 
honour of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles in 
the visible appearance of fiery cloven tongues ; an event which 
if it ever happened at all, must have happened after the date as- 
signed to the resurrection of Christ. Certain it is, upon the 
showing of the Jew-books, that this self-same festival was kept for 
ages before that event. As it is called in those books, '' the feast 
of weeks.'' It being exactly seven weeks from their Passover, as 
it is from our Cross-over. And in their edition of the story, it fell 
on the same day, and was precisely in commemoration of the de- 
scent of the first person of the Trinity, upon Mount Sinai, in thun- 
der and lightning, as it is with us, in commemoration of the descent 
of the third, upon Mount Upstairs into the large upper room, in 
*' blood and fire, and vapour of smoke." 

With this most singular, and never-to-be-forgotten coincidence, 
that, 

Whether this Patefaction of the Deity be " up stairs, or down 
stairs, or in my lady's chamber," it never took place, but in the 
month of May, and when the Sun was in the sign of Gemini, the 
Twins : where, happily for our illustration, it lKi])j)ens to be, at 
this minute, just entering Gemini, 35 minutes, 52 seconds of \is first 



294 THE devil's pulpit. 

degree, this being May 22 : to-morrow it will have made the first de- 
gree complete, plus 33 minutes 52 seconds. May, being particularly 
the season of love, and towards the latter end of it, the beginning 
of the hay harvest, when the first ingatherings and early fruits crave 
us a gust, or fortaste of the forthcoming abundance : and the Sun, 
having entirely overcome the mistiness and fogs which attend his 
earlier career, shines forth in his full splendour. He is then said to 
be, and physically is, clarified, as our pens and quills are said to be 
clarified, when all the superfluous moisture, and goosegrease is, I 
know not how, boiled or baked, or dried out of them. 

But, though the Sun is thus clarified, and cleared from all the 
mists that dim his splendour, when he enters the Twins of May, his 
heat is not yet so equably diffused, as when he shines directly down 
from his highest point of elevation, the summer solstice. In conse- 
quence of which, the air is heated and rarified, but partially, as 
over the sands of Africa ; and over all those parts of the earth 
which reflect heat. So that the surrounding denser air, rushing in, 
in consequence, causes those rushing mighty minds, or Holy GiistSj 
which render the month of May full often peculiarly unpropitious to 
human health. 

The word hohj is but an affectedly solemn and religious-cant 
utterance of the word hehj, purposely adopted to conceal its real 
meaning and derivation, from the Greek word Helois ; which signi- 
fies the Sun, as that Greek word is from Heli, which is, My God 
— that is, the Su7i. 

In like manner, the word Ghost, is but the drawling, mock 
solemn utterance, adopted for the same deceitful purpose, of the 
word Gust, or a pvff, or blast of wind. 

And glory, or glonfied, and glorification, are similar cheats of 
the sound to hide the sense, which is clary, clarified, and clarifica- 
tion ; from whence our common words, clear, clearly and clearness, 
which I hope I have now made clear to your understandings. 

So your Holy Ghost at last ends in a mere puff of wind. A 
Hely Gust — that is, a gust of wind caused by the Sun. 

And we can give our Christian clergy a physical, rational and 
literal interpretation of their famous conundrum, John vii , 39, 
where, in the Greek, are these words : sno) yap rjv rrvevfia aytov 
on \vo8(; sdETiG) sdo^aadrj. 

" For as yet there was no Holy Ghost because Jesus was not yet 
clarified,^^ — (solution.) 

That peculiar rushing wind from Heaven, can be produced only 
by the Sun, and then, and not before, when the Sun is clarified, as 
he is in May. 

And all this, in illustration of another enigma, " He that be- 



THE devil's pulpit. 295 

lieveth in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,'* 
Yes, yes ! And this is Christian instruction for you : this is the 
blessed effect of believing in Christ. It will give a man the dropsy 
in his belly, and not pints, or quarts, or gallons, but rivers of living 
waters ? Grod, the Waters may be living, but the Devil's in't if 
the man must not be dying. What would become of such a be- 
liever : his dearest friends must be afraid of coming near him, for 
fear of being drowned. He'd overwhelm us. 

St. Luke mentions Christ's healing a certain man, which was 
before him, and which had the dropsy, as if it had been a very kind 
and charitable thing to cure a man of the dropsy. But here, in 
St. John, we have the dropsy, and the most inordinate dropsy that 
ever was in the world, described as a privilege, and benefit to be 
conferred on a man as a reward for his believing in Christ. Could 
wilder nonsense, could more execrable insanity, and stark staring 
madness resound through the walls of Bedlam, than this? or than 
the best interpretation of this, that any clergyman you ever heard 
before in your lives could ever give you ? Or could you have 
clearer demonstration that your clergy really are enemies to 
the diffusion of good sense and rational learning among men, than 
when you see them unable to meet a man in argument, or vie with 
him in honest labours, to rationalize society, seeking to brand him 
with the name of evil disposed wicked person, and to assign him to 
the penalties due to felony and crime? 

As see ye, sirs : the " certain man which had the dropsy," in 
Luke's gospel, was indeed a certain man that very particular cer- 
tain man, that had such a very particular sort of dropsy, as no man 
but he. 

And that we may be more particular as to the identity of that 
certain man, which had the dropsy, the evangelist points him out 
to us, with that particular admonitory hint to us, which nobody 
takes any notice of, but which is the key of the whole riddle. 
^^ Behold/'' " Behold a certain man." This certain man with the 
dropsy, then, is a man that may be beheld, looked at, seen, observed. 
Beheld ! where ? He's not here, surely. Holloa, Old Fotbellij, 
where are you ? 

The text supplies an answer even to that question, a certain 
man, " before him'' — that is, not in his presence, or 6e///?u/ him, as 
was the certain Cyro- Phoenician woman which came behind him, 
and touched the hem of his garment, but before him — that is, inhn 
way: so that Jesus must run over him if he does not get out of liis 
way 

And then it follows that he " healed" him— that is, not that he 
cured him of the dropsy ; the Devil-a-bit, for that was as bad as ever. 



296 '^^^ devil's pulpit. 

He has a relapse of this complaint every spring of the year ; and 
so appears agaia in the gospel of St. John, as the believer in 
Christ, like the poor Chinese, Hoo Loo, so used to his tumour, that 
^twould kill him to take it away, though out of his belly flow rivers 
of living water. 

So Jesus is not said to cure him, but he healed him ; that word, 
from Helios, the S'l^n, signifying merely that he shone upon him — 
that is, he Sunned him, as the sacred words are, ^' he took him, and 
healed him, and let him go^ And here you see the old boy, in 
Aquarius, the genius of January, with the pot right upon his belly 
and rivers of living water literally and annually flowing out of it. 
As the inundations of both the Nile and the Ganges, the most fa- 
mous rivers of the whole earth, annually take place at the time of 
the Sun's entering into the constellation of Aquarius, the Water 
Bearer. And Jesus every year, literally and physically, takes this 
dropsical man, and Suns him, and lets him go, when he takes wp, 
and enters into the group, which constitutes this constellation, as it 
stands in his annual course, shines in it, passes through it ; so he 
heals it, and lets it go : as David calls upon the Sun to do, in order 
that he may pull himself out of the mire and clay of winter. " Let 
thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, and on the Son of 
Man, whom thou madest so strong for thine own self" Psalm 80. 

The witty miracle, or descent of the Holy Ghost, on the apos- 
tles, by the rule of contraries, which runs through the whole of 
sacred writ, is in the letter so excessively and inordinately silly, 
that we find our Christian ministers, notwithstanding their menda- 
cious professions of not being ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, most 
egregiously ashamed of the Acts of the Apostles : so much so, that 
though, like the Pagan Augurs, whose successors they are, they job 
the job, of saying as little about it as possible from their pulpit, no 
two of them would venture to speak of it in the presence of a third, 
without making him promise, that he would not point his finger and 
laugh. 

For first the miracle was wholly superfluous and unnecessary, 
yea impossible, unless Christ himself were an impostor, which I am 
sure he was not. 

For how could the apostles receive the Holy Ghost, when they 
were already in full possession of the Holy Ghost ? 

And how could Christ possibly send down the Holy Ghost 
from Heaven, after his ascension, when before his ascension, he had 
actually given them the Holy Ghost, and, consequently, put them 
in full possession of all the advantages that could attend the posses- 
sion of that gift. 

" He breathed on them," says John, in his gospel, xx. 22 j and 



THE devil's pulpit. 29*1 

saith unto them : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost fVhosoever sins yc 
remit, they are remittedy and whosever sins ye retain, they are 
retained.'* 

What could priestly pride and arrogance want more than this? 

What could it be but a mere sending coals to Newcastle? 
to supply 'em with any more Holy ,Ghost, after such a blow-out as 
this ? 

And can we suppose, that the power to forgive and retain sins, 
would have been given to men who had yet to wait till Wit 
Sunday, before they could have wit enough to know how to exer- 
cise that power, or sufficient of the gift of talking, to say enough 
about it. 

But out again, — this is but half the foolery on't. For, after 
having received the Holy Ghost, to endure them with supernatural 
wisdom, and the gift of tongues, to enable them to speak all the 
languages of the earth in a moment of time, we find, that the next 
day they had forgotten all those learned languages, and even spoke 
their own so clownishly and ungrammattically, that even the Bow- 
street magistrates took notice of Peter and John, the two principals, 
*' that they were unlearned and ignorant men." Acts iv. 13. 

The prominence of Peter and John, in this affair of the tongues 
in which Peter, after all, was the only one who seemed to make any 
use of his tongue, must lead us to think that these two were the 
representatives of all the rest : so that, in reality, there were but 
two of them on whose heads the fiery tongues actually sat : and 
who were in that " large upper room," not to say the first floor 
down the chimney, when, " suddenly there came a sound from Hea- 
ven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where 
they were sitting." 

Sitting, sirs ! they were sitting ; and, like their impudence, it 
must have been, to be in a sitting position, when the third person 
in the Trinity was come to visit them. *' They were all, with 
one accord, in one place : so that, however many of them, they made 
up but one congregation, and had but two dignities of the first mag- 
nitude among them. And the one place, where they were with one 
accord, is in the Greek of the immediately preceding chapter, called, 
TO VTrepcjov: with this still more critical and curious piece of exact- 
ness, — that this rushing mighty wind from Heaven, which was the 
Holy Ghost, was to come, not about the time of Pentecost merely, 
or on the day of Pentecost, which might have seemed particular 
enough ; but not till the day of Pentecost wsls fully come. As if 
this matter were regulated with the precision of a chronometer. 

The hint given to our observance, is, that whenever the Holy 
Ghost is cnnceriuHl with a man's uvpar stonj, we should not only 

13* 



!298 THE devil's pulpit. 

s?e which way the wind blows, but also be very particular as tc 

what time o' the day it is with him. 

Of which propriety the church throws us out a pretty broad hint, 
in her Witty Sunday collect : " Grant us by the same spirit to have 
a right judgment in all things, Amen'^ — that is to say Ammon — 
that is to say Gammon, that is, we must be up to Gammon, and take 
a special care to have a right judgment in all Holy Ghost transactions. 

Thus, as the Holy Ghost means most literally nothing more 
than the Sun-heated air — that is, a Holy Gust, or a Gust rushing 
through a hole — as it is expressly called, " a rushing mighty wind." 
And we see that it is the property of the wind to produce a mere 
noise, without any sort of sense or articulate coherency. We see 
what kind of use they would be likely to make of their tongues, 
" who spoke only as the Spirit gave them utterance." 

As you may see and hear for yourselves, to this day, in what 
they call extemporaneous preaching, and what passes for eloquence 
at the other shops, — that they have indeed the gift of tongues most 
abundantly, but the Devil-a-bit of the gift of common sense, or 
intelligible congruity with their tongues. 

You may hear them rattle away, like the clapper in a cherry 
tree. All the louder, and all the faster, the more of the^Holy Gust 
blows upon, while they themselves are as unconscious of any mean- 
ing in their clamour, as the daws and sparrows that are fools 
enough to be frightened at it. 

Had the severest sarcasm that ingenuity could devise, have been 
intended (and who could say that it was not intended ?) in this 
witty miracle, how could it be wrought up to finer effect, than in 
the exhibition of a set of fellows, under the influence of a brain 
fever, imagining that the heat they felt about the head was a 
tongue of fire, and that the ramblings of their delirium were spo- 
ken, not by the tongues of their mouths, but by knots"on the tops 
of their night-caps. So that their friends, maki«ng the best apology 
they can for them, say, that they must be drunk. Whereupon the 
chief speaker among them, in order to prove that they were not 
drunk, " standing up," and, " lifting up his voice," explains to 
them, that it was impossible that they could be drunk, because they 
had only been drinking for three hours, " seeing it was but the third 
hour" of the day. And as a fui'ther proof that they were not 
drunk, he beseeches them, only to listen for a few moments, how 
rationally and sober he can talk. And then he tips 'em off that 
fine specimen of rational argument, and sober calm, and manly rea- 
soning, " Your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see 
visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, a dark Sun, a bloody 
Moon, blood and fire, and vapour and smoke." 



THE devil's pulpit. 299 

Whereupon the more sensible part of their hearers sue out a 
Wiit de Lunatico Inquirendo: and, for the safety of the public, the 
ministers of divine wisdom are put into the fittest place for all the 
divi»e ministers. 

Such is the impression, that the story in any relations to an 
historical character of it, would necessarily produce on any honest 
mind And so well aware are the privileged deceivers of the people, 
that this would be the impression, that though it is in the system 
of their theology, the sine qua noii : the great and ultimate prool 
of Christ's resurrection (as it really is in nature, the proof of the 
Sun's having reached the great object of his desire, the Gemini, or 
Twins of May), that they always shirk it. Even the maddest of 
our evangelical preachers, mad as they are, have too much of that 
sh.-ewd cunning which accompanies madness, to expose themselves 
to the laughter which would attend on any explanation they could 
give, of this witless Whit Sunday witty miracle. 

But mad and foolish beyond all names of madness and folly, as 
is all that you ever heard, about this Holy Ghost affair, in church 
or chapel : It is not madness nor foolishness that we offer you at 
the Rotunda. I, indeed, laugh at their interpretations of script- 
ure, can they return the -compliment and laugh at mine ? Indeed 
they cannot : or, if they did, 'tis at the wrong side of their mouths. 

But "Wisdom is justified of her children." And here are her 
children, the Gemini of May, the great object of desire to the per- 
sonified genius of the Sun, in the gospel pantomime, where, as you 
see, they turn their faces from him, and Master Castor is holding 
up his hand, as if to push him off: While he coaxes them to him 
in these allegorical words : " Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not : for of such is the Kingdom of 
Heaven."' 

And of such as you see, really is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Such is the Sun's position really and literally on the day of Pente- 
cost — that is, on the fiftieth day from Easter. 

And to all the analogies of their historical nonsense of the day 
of Pentecost, present we here that rational, philosophical, and 
demonstrative solution, which, they who dared not come and hear 
it, for fear they should be convinced, call blasphemy. 

For see, sirs. Problem 1. — Were they all with one accord in 
one place, so that how many soever they were, they made up but 
one unanimous congregation ? 

Solution. — The Stars which make up the whole constellation 
of Gemini, which are 85 in Flamstead's catalogue, thougli only 25 
in the catalogues of Ptolemy and Tycho, are most literally with 



300 '^H^ DETIL'S PULPIT. 

one accord in one place, and form but one constellation, consisting 
of two brothers, Castor and Pollux, answering to two brothers, 
Peter and John, who are the two who represent the whole coni- 
pauY, and were the only two who made any use of their tongues. 

Vrohlem 2. — And they were sitting, when the Holy Ghost 
came, and filled all the house u'here they ivere setting. 

Solution. — The Gemini, or Twins of May, are. and always were 
represented in a sitting position, the two boys kissing and cuddl- 
ing each other. 

Problem 3. — And what particular large upper room, in which 
they were, is called an upper room. 

'Solution. — In relation to appearances with us. it is up indeed, 
e'en up in the vanity arch so high above our heads. 

Problem 4.— And it is called in the Greek ro vrrspcDov — that 
is, literally, in the egg above. 

Solution. — The Castor and Pollux of the Zodiac are repre^ 
sented as hardly out of the shell, and were both believed to be 
oviparous — that is, born from the egg of Lceda, the wife of Tyn- 
darus. 

But the most curious and literal of all these analogies is that 
contained in those words of sacred writ, which every body has 
read, but nobody has read, with their eyes sufficiently open to see 
exactly what it Vas that they were reading. 

"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, 
and it sat upon each of them J' E9 eva SKaarov avrcjv — that 
is, upon both of them — that is, upon the two only, Peter and John, 
or Peter and Thomas, as representatives of the whole constella- 
tion. 

And here are the •• cloven tongues like as of fire," sitting upon 
the heads of each of the brothers, Castor and Pollux, the pretty 
prattling children of the Zodiac, who, if they could not prattle 
better stuff than the pantomime sets down for them, had better 
hold their tongues : lest other children should apply to them the 
proverb — 

" Tell tale tit 
Your tongue shall be slit." 

A slit tongue, or a cloven tongue, never being emblematical of any 
thing else than a lying tongue. Their identity with the disciples 
is further sustained by the fact of their eternal childhood, as we 
find them addressed by Christ, both before and after his resurrec- 
tion, notwithstanding their beards were thick enough, by the wheedl- 
mg epithet, '•little children,'' as in John xiii. 33. Where he 



THE devil's pulpit. 301 

Bpeaks to them, like mamma to her little pets, " Little children, 
yet a little while I am with you, and whither I go ye cannot 
come;" which, for all the sense your clergy could ever give you ot 
it, is as pretty a 

" Bye baby bunting 
Your father's gone a hunting," 

as ever lulled to rest the tetchy squallers of the nursery. 

But philosophically most accurate : the little while that he is 
with the little children, is, from this day, Whit Sunday, May 22, 
till Wednesday, June 22, when he leaves the little children, and 
passes into Cancer the Crab : and, sure enough, whither he goes 
they cannot come. 

So did the ancient astronomers, in this enigmatical fiction, 
record their accurate knowledge of the proper motions and rela- 
tions of the heavenly bodies. 

The Pagan story of Castor and Pollux, which is quite of as 
good authority, and of infinitely higher antiquity than the story 
of the Acts of the Apostles : as we have it in Diodorus Si cuius, 
relates that these Gods, sailing with Jason,in the Argonautic expedi- 
tion, to bring back the Golden Fleece, saved the vessel from a 
dreadful storm (that is, surely, from "a rushing mighty wind "), 
there appearing upon the heads of Castor and Pollux two lambent 
flames — that is, surely, ^' cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat 
upon each of them :" which appearance was followed by so great 
a calm, as left no doubt on the minds of any of them, that the per- 
sons on whose heads the fiery tongues had been seen were divinely 
inspired. 

And, as in the visible heavens, when the first star in the toe of 
Castor, is at the Zenith, at that moment, the two Equinoctial 
points are respectively at the eastern and western edge of the hori- 
zon. Castor and Pollux were believed to preside in an especial 
manner over all courts of law and justice. 

And hence, in all theologies, consisting alike as all systems of 
theology have done, of an allegory upon natural phoenomena, the 
origin and never altered, never varied observance of the principle, 
that the promulgation of the law should always be from the top 
of a mountain. 

Jupiter thunders forth his decrees from the top of Blount 
Olympus — Yahough or Jehovah gives his laws from the top of 
Mount Sinai. 

And Jesus Christ preaches his sermon from the Mount. 

But here is the solution of the whole mystery. As the my- 
thology of Castor and Pollux ran, that they should always be 



302 THE devil's pulpit, 

antipodes to each other : so that when one was in Heaven the 
other should be in Hell Here you see precisely opposite to the 
place of Castor and Pollux, in the Zodiac, is the Holy Ghost fly- 
iog away with *'his beloved Sou, in whom he is well pleased.'* 
Here is St. John, on whom the cloven tongue had sat when he 
was in the large upper room, turned into the boy Antinous, carried 
away by the eagle of Jupiter. The eagle itself being identified 
with Jupiter in the Pagan Mythos, as the Pigeon of the Gospel is 
identified with the Holy Ghost in the Christian fable : the beloved 
disciple with his PZagle on the pediment of your Christian Cathe- 
dral, is thus identified with the Ganymede or Antinous of the Pa- 
gan Mythology. 



END OF THE DISCOURSE OX THE HOLY GHOST. 



THi DiVil'S PDIPIT. 



"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS:'— Allan Cunningham. 

' SAINT PHILIP: 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, MAY 29, 1831. 

*' He delighteth not in the strength of the horse ; 

He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man." Bible Version, 

" He has no pleasure in the strength of a horse ; 

Neither delighteth he in any man's legs." Prayer Booh Version, 

** He values not the warlike steed, but doth his strength disdain : 

The nimble foot that swiftly runs, no prize from him can gain." 

Brady and Tales Version. 
" He gives to beasts their food, and to young ravens when they cry ; 

His pleasure not in strength of horse, nor in man's legs doth lie." 

Sternhold and Hopkins Version. 

There's for ye, sirs ! There's nuts for us to crack. They 
give you the shells only for your money at the other shop; but 
here we'll have the kernel. 

Here's a bit of divine revelation for us : ''The Lord hath no 
pleasure in the strength of a horse ; neither delighteth he in any 
man's legs." 

What a droll conceit, that God-a'-mighty should have any ob- 
jection to a man's legs. There must be some understanding in 
these legs, I guess ; and I defy the wit of man to give a better 
guess why the Bible should be called the Old Testament— that is, 
the last Will and Testament of" God, than that it leaves us a leg 
I-see [legacy.) 

And if we but make a right use of the legs, which God hath 
bequeathed to us. we shall give the clergy such a kick bye and bye 
as shall not leave them a leg to stand on. 

But the new Testament and the Old are so essentially inter- 
woven, that the defects of the ellipsis in the one being to be sujh 
plied by the periphrasis of the other, like different translations of 



304 THE devil's pulpit. 

the same original, affords a strength of demonstration as to the 
significancy and intention, than which nothing which is called 
demonstration can be more demonstrative. 

Thus, in all possible renderings, or translations of this evidently 
enigmatical portion of the word of God, and it really and truly is 
the word of God, "The Lord delighteth not in a man's legs ; neither 
hath he pleasure in the strength of a horse ;" turn it which way 
you please, or let it mean whatever in the Devil's name it may 
mean — it either means nothing, or it means something that smells 
of the stable. It's a bit of horsemanship ; and I'll answer for it, 
that Mr. Ductow, at Astley's theatre, could give ye a more rational 
explanation of it than the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

There are always to be found in the New Testament charac- 
ters, analogies, and personifications, which supply the key to the 
blue chamber of the Old Testament, — the one is said to be typical 
of the other : and, therefore, the way of interpreting Scripture, 
which I have uniformly adopted, has been that which Scripture 
itself proposes. Not handling the word of God deceitfully, as they 
do, whom the apostle denounces for beguiling unstable souls, but 
comparing spiritual things with spiritual, and letting God speak 
his own language, and in his own way, however droll and strange 
to us that way of his may seem to be. For ye see, my brethren : 

"The Lord's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our 
thoughts." And, therefore, when his ways seem to us to be 
strange ways, and his thoughts nonsensical thoughts, it becomes 
ns to submit our wisdom to his folly, and to settle the quarrel 
with our faith, by concluding at once that ifs a way that he has 
got. 

As the holy apostle admonisheth us in those holy words, in 
1 Corinth, i. 25 ; "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than 
men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 

And our own reason must show us, that if the almighty did 
not occasionally relieve his infinite widsom from the stretch, by 
condescending to make a fool of himself occasionally, not only 
would his infinite wisdom wear out, but we should lose the 
grandest evidence of the truth of our holy faith, which assures 
us that God made man in his own image, after his own likeness. 
So that as — 

Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit : no man is wise at all 
times, — so it is not for us erring mortals to arraign our heavenly 
Father, who offers the Cup of Salvation to our souls, for an occa- 
sional symptom of his having been a little bit in his cups himself. 

God forbid that I should throw out an irreverential insinuation 
against bis incomprehensible Majesty. But when J find the holy 



THE devil's pulpit. 305 

word so little mincing the matter, as to let it bolt out, that he's 
downright drunk, I take the very humblest, modest, and most 
reverential mode of only insinuating that his Omnipotence may be 
supposed to be capable of an holy indiscretion.' 

But not more evident than the state of divine inspiration, when 
complaining in the language of our text, that "he hath no pleas- 
ure in the strength of a horse, neither delighteth he in any man's 
legs." 

But, whatever may be the state of divine inspiration, reason is 
always sober : and shews the certain etymological fact, that the 
lover, or delighter in a horse, is expressed in the Greek w^ord Phi- 
lippos, the basis of the name Philip, will, through all the windings 
of the Cretan Labyrinth, identify this Lord that had no pleasure 
in the legs of a man, and but little in the strength of a horse, with 
the holy apostle Philip, the disciple of Christ in the gospel alle- 
gory, and the half-man and half-horse of the Zodiac, from whence 
that allegory was taken. 

The Sagittarius of the Zodiac is, as you see, the gloomy genius 
of November, — a man down to the loins only, and all the lower 
part a horse — a mauj therefore, exactly answering to so much of 
the definition of the Lord in the Old Testament, as brings the idea 
of a man and horse together — that is, a man not having a man's 
legs, but those of a horse : 

A man growing to a horse ; and so a lover of a horse, — most 
literally, a Philip. 

In the strength of this horse the Lord has no pleasure, and in 
the legs of a man this horse has no occasion. The Sun is in this 
constellation in the month of November, during which there is but 
little pleasure for either man or horse, the sports of hunting, at this 
season, hardly making amends for the chilly and cheerless prospect 
of approaching winter. 

So it is the chilly and cheerless Apostle Philip of the gospel, 
who alone, of all the twelve, says to his master, ^'Lord, show us the 
Father, and H sujfficeth us,'' — that is, a slight glimpse of the Sun, 
or a mere sight of him, without feeling much of his heat, will be 
enough for the gloomy days of November. To which he is an- 
swered in the language of a most perfect and scientific allegorical 
astronomy : 

"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast tfiou not 
known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father ; 
and how sayest thou, then, show us the Father? Believewt thou 
not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? The words 
that 1 speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Fatlu'r that 
dwelleth in me — he doth the works. Believe me that 1 am in the 



306 THE devil's pulpit. 

Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me for the very 
work's sake. YqH ly, verily, I say unto you : He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than 
these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father." — John xiv. 
8—12. 

If this, then, be a definition of a believer in Christ, and sure it 
is so, sirs ; if Christ himself is to be believed upon his oath, his 
twice repeated oath, "Yerily, Yerily," being in strength of affidavit 
no less than By God, By God. "He that believeth in me, the 
works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these 
shall he do ;" — that is, the man shall beat the master. Where is 
there a Christian upon earth at this day, who answers to the de- 
finition ? or how can a man call himself a believer in Christ, with- 
out, by that very pretence, committing the most flagrant blasphemy, 
making himself superior to Christ, setting himself above Omni- 
potence, and asserting his possession of superior miraculous powers ? 

" If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that 
believeth. " None, then, but the Almighty himself can be a 
believer. 

As Saint Paul instructs us — ^that the wisdom of God (which is 
wise enough with the boys and girls) is foolishness with men. 

"And if ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say 
to this Sycamore tree, be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou 
planted in the sea ; and it should obey you." Then surely, sirs, the 
pretenders to faith are the most impudent hypocrites that ever in- 
sulted reason : for it is as impossible that a man should possess 
faith, as that he should remove mountains. 

"He that believeth in Christ, is one with Christ, and Christ 
with him. He is in Christ, and Christ in him." And is as much 
entitled to be believed in, prayed to, adored, and worshipped, as 
Christ himselt; and, therefore, prove to me that he is a believer in 
Christ, (if any man on earth can) I'd be quite as ready to worship 
him, as his master. 

"Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." So that it 
a believer in Christ would but take his course through the interior 
of Africa, he might be the means of fertilizing the whole sandy 
desert. He that believeth in Christ, "though he were dead, yet 
shall he live, and whosoever believeth and liveth in him shall never 
die." Nothing, then, which is mortal, can answer to the definition 
of a believer in Christ. 

There can be no doubt at all that the Holy Apostle, Saint 
Philip, was a believer in Christ, and by the clue of these definitions, 
we may eSectuate the business of this indagation, which is to find 
out our man. 



THE devil's pulpit. 3()'y 

And as we have more than a hint that Philip wns a oroat 
hunter, We cannot follow his holy example better, than by havino* 
a good hunt after him, — with this more especial inducement to the 
chase, that we have been told that Philip had four daughters which 
did prophesy : so that, by stealing a march upon Saint Philip, we 
may run a chance of scraping acquaintance with the Misses Philip, 
and getting our fortunes told. 

As we read, in Acts xxi. 9, "of Philip, the Evangelist, who 
was one of the Seven — that is, I suppose, one of the seven evange- 
lists, or else one of the seven archangels, or else one of the seven 
heavens, or else one of the seven summer months, or else one of the 
seven gates in the Holy City, or else one of the seven Stars in 
Jesus Christ's right hand, or else one of the seven eyes in God-a'- 
mighty's forehead, or else one of the seven golden candlesticks, or 
else one of the seven planets, or else one of the seven days of the 
week, or else one of the seven vials of wrath, or else one of the 
seven seals of prophecy, or else one of the seven gifts of the spirit, 
or else one of the seven deadly sins, or else one of any of the seven 
holy or seven unholy things, which we find always so ingeniously 
contrived to set the brains of religious people in the state th^t their 
brains are always found to be in — i. e., all sixes and sevens : 

So Philip, the evangelist, was one of the seven somethings, or 
some-als, or, for fear of being "wise above what is written," we 
had better be satisfied with knowing that Philip, the evangelist, 
was one of the seven thmg-i'-me-hohs, — which, if it be not quite 
so much information about Saint Philip, the evangelist, as I am 
in the habit of supplying my customers with, God Almighty 
knows that it's quite as much as you'll get for your money at 
the other shop. 

It is something, however, to know, that Philip, the evangelist, 
w^as Philip the evangelist : because, if an evangelist means a writer 
of the gospel, as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the writers of 
our four gospels are therefore called the four evangelists ; then 
Philip, the evangelist, is a fifth evangelist, and the gospel, accord- 
ing to Saint Philip, nmst be of as high authority, and quite as 
essential to our salvation, as either of the gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, or John. 

The earliest sect of Christians, called the Gnostics, professed to 
possess a genuine and real gospel, that was actually written by the 
holy evangelist. Saint Philip ; but, unfortunately, the later sects 
of Christians, who called themselves Orthodox Christians, said that 
the gospels which the Gnostics received, were no-gospels, and that 
the Gnostics were 7L()-s(,ckx ,- because they stuck at nothinir, Mud 
(brged their gospels themselves: which, if they did, it only sh(»\v.«^ 



308 THE devil's pulpit. 

what sticks Christians must be, in having no suspicion that others 
might play the game as well as they. 

But of Philip, the evangelist, whatever became of his evangely, 
we have the most positive information that he "had four daughters, 
virgins which did prophesy," Acts xxi. 8. I should not wonder if 
their names were Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. But 
their prophesying is vexatious : since it shows that we have not 
only been derived of Philip's gospel ; but, between the sticks in 
every thins:, and the sticks at nothing, we have been done out of 
the Miss Philips' prophecies : and here has been all this divine 
inspiration thrown away. Here is infinite widsom running out at 
the spigot, and no Cup of Salvation to catch it, — an inspiring 
God, the mind that rules the universe, in the fountain of all 
knowledge, throwing away its suggestions as if they were of no 
more account than the froth in a bottle of ginger beer. Had we 
been by when the cork was drawn, we might have been sprinkled 
into salvation. But as it is, alas! No more of the sweet water of 
life hath flowed down to us than hath served to breed locusts and 
caterpillars, in the stinking ditches of priestcraft. 

Tell they us, that the four gospels are enough, and that we 
ought to be satisfied with the prophecies of their Isaiahs, and 
Jeremiahs, and Zachariahs, and Zephaniahs, and Jeberechiahs ? 
they lie against the testimony of their own book in so telling us : 
*'For thus saith the Lord God, the prophets prophesy falsely, and 
the priests bear rule by their means." 

And if it hadn't been to support the craft of the priests, 
we should never have been curst by their prophets, or evangelists 
either. 

Would we do away with divine revelation altogether? I 
answer, certainly not, with the Miss Philips' divine revelations : 
but none but the Miss Philips for us. Let them produce the Miss 
Philips' prophecies, and they would convert the whole infidel 
world. For I am as sure as I am of my own existence, that no 
infidel would ever give the lie to the ladies. 

Notwithstanding the positive assertions of Scripture, that 
Saint Philip had "four daughters, virgins which did not prophesy," 
we learn from ecclesiastical history (Euseb. lib. 3. c. 30), which 
never contradicts Scripture, that he had but three daughters, two 
whereof, Eusebius says, persevered in their virginity ; but the 
other was not quite so persevering. The two old maids, he says, 
died at Hierapolis, that never-to-be-forgotten Hierapohs, or Holy 
City, and Heliopolis, that City of the Sun, in which all these 
virgins and prophetesses, and evangelists, and saints, and martyrs, 
come by their saintships, and martyrdoms, and crucifixions, and 



THE devil's pulpit. 309 

executions, so as to leave no account of their havinj:^ been execut- 
ed in the calenders of any city or country upon earth. 

The other Miss Philip, as we learn from the same Eusebius, 
*' lived a very spiritual life," and died at Ephesus. Ephesus;, as ^ 
have heretofore demonstrated in theological geography, not being any 
city so called upon earth, but another compartment of that self- 
same llierapolis, or Heliopolis. 

Of the holy apostle, Saint Philip, all that we learn from our 
prayer book is, that he goes partners with James the Less, in the 
religious honours of the chimney-sweeps* holiday, the 1st of May, 
— when the parsons, for no reason that they could ever tell anybody, 
tell G-od Almighty to grant that they, following the steps of his 
holy apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, may steadfastly walk 
in the way that leadeth to eternal life, through the same, his Son 
Jesus Christ, their Lord, Ammon. 

Of all which mystical language, the whole meaning is couched 
in that last word Ammon, and may be found out by spelling ammon, 
with a capital Gr to it. 

Of this holy apostle. Saint Philip, all we learn from critical or- 
thography is, that no Jew, or inhabitant of Jerusalem, or Hebrew, 
if we were to suppose the existence of a Hebrew or Jewish nation, 
(which I deny), could ever have been called by that name. For 
Philip is not a Hebrew name ; but, like Andrew, Nicodemus, John, 
Thomas, James, Alexander, Eufus, and many others, of Greek de- 
rivation ; proving so incidently with ten thousand other proofs, 
that the original Greek, in a sense which Christian critics never 
yet had the honesty to contemplate, was the original indeed. 

The word Flulijp, literally signifying, lover of a horse, metapho- 
rically became a name expressive of the character of jockeys, 
huntsmen, equestrians, farriers, riders. 

Horsemen, as we call them to this day, men delighting in the 
menage, training, and care of that noble animal, tlie horse, than in 
the care and management of which no man can be witlier or better 
employed. 

But the light of science breaks inhere upon the faintly delineat- 
ed Philip of the gospel. 

The horseman-like, the God-man of the Christian fable, rides 
back again into his original site in the Starry Heavens, and the 
holy apostle, Saint Philip, of an idiotishly-belicved fable, is the 
Sagittarius of astronomical science. 

Of the holy apostle. Saint Philip, the holy fable, that is to say, 
the holy gospel, expressly states : — " Now Philip was of Bethsaidu, 
the city of Andrew and Peter." John i. 44. 



310 THE devil's pulpit. 

We have already settled our reckoniogs with Andrew, and Peter, 
James, John, Thomas, and Judas. 

We have already ascertained and demonstrated, even with the 
accuracy of mathematical demonstration, the precise astronomical 
positions of Saint Peter, the keeper of heaven gate, at the gate going 
into that heavenly city, and his brother Andrew, the keeper of the 
gate, at the going out of that city. What other, then, could that 
city of Peter and Andrew be, than the city which lay between the 
stations Peter and Andrew — that is, as every city must lie, between 
the gate that leads into it, and the gate that leads out of it. 

That city of Andrew and Peter was also the city of Philip, and 
also is called Betluaida. But what light reflects the meaning of 
that word Bethsaida, as constituting an exegesis, or further defini- 
tion of the city of Andrew and Peter ? Or. if Philip were a man 
at all, what the better or worse man should he be for being of 
Bethsaida 1 Or of what such consequence could it be that we 
should know that Philip was of Bethsaida, that it should be wor- 
thy of divine revelation, divinely to reveal, and to inspire a particu- 
lar parenthesis, stopping the general tenor of the business of divine 
revelation, to give us, as it were, a rap on our knuckles — a sort of 
mind ye, sirs, now, what you'r about ? Remember, Philip was op 
Bethsaida. 

Well, what of that ? There is so much of that as amounts to 
another, added to one hundred thousand concurrent demonstrations, 
that in every text, in every parenthesis, in every phrase of your 
gospels, there is proof inherent, that they are not true, and never 
were intended to pass for truth, or for anything more than what 
they are — that is, a veil thrown over astronomical science, and 
allegory and fiction merely. 

JJ<^S? ra (Bet-Tsada), is literally the house of the hunter. Here, 
then, we have the whole enucleation, and o 6tr]iXiTog ano Bi^Oaa'CSa, 
Philip of Bethasida, is identified with the lover of the horse, 
the horse-man, or half man and half horse, in the house or mansion 
of the hunter, which is the place of the Sagittarius of the Zodiac, 
and is the city of Andrew and Peter : the Philip of the New Tes- 
tament being none other than the Nimrod of the old. " Cash 
begat Nimrod ; he began to be a mighty one in the earth," — that is, 
among the constellations which fall below the Equator, which are 
called of the earth, or earthy, as distinguished from the constella- 
tions of the northern hemisphere, which are called heavenly. And 
as Nimrod is distinguished in the Genesis as he who " began to be 
a mighty one," so Philip, the hunter of the gospel fable, has the 
honour of being the frst called to be a disciple of Christ. " He 



THE devil's pulpit. 311 

was a mighty hunter before the Lord." Wherefore it is said, 
" even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord." Genesis 
X. 9. 

And here you see, on the celestial globe, is the gloomy genius 
of Novem-BuR — that is, the ninth God-Berith, — each of thf^se 
stations of the heavens deriving its name from its ancient Tsaha- 
ism, or Stag-uwship, whence, in the Phoenician tongue, the word 
Beth-Saida, the house, station, temple, or constellation of the 
hunter ; and, for the whole of them generally, Beth, Baal, Berith, 
the temple of the Gods Berith. — Bryanfs Analysis, Vol. III., p. 210. 

As you read in Judges viii. 33 : — " And it came to pass as 
soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, 
and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal Berith their God." 

God forbid that we should find any fault with the language of 
divine inspiration ; only, on our carnal way of thought, we grown- 
up folks, cannot help thinking that the Israelites must have been a 
very forward race of people, when the children of Israel went a 
W—ing. 

The name of the Gods, Berith in the singular number, Ber, is 
still retained in conjunction with the Latin words, Sepiem OctOy 
Novem, Decern, in our Septem Ber, Octo Ber, Novem Ber, Decern 
Ber. 

We now, I think, begin to ken in what sense this Novem Ber, 
or Ninth God Berith, this Philip, or Horse Man, in Bethsaida, the 
house or station of the hunter, gets the name, in common with 
others, of the evaiigelist. Acts xxi. 8. " The house of Philip the 
evangelist," — an evangelist meaning " a preacher of the gospel," 
and to preach the gospel, meaning, to do what no man on earth ever 
did, or could do, what none but the twelve apostles, that is, the 
twelve Signs of the Zodiac, and the Sun, as shining in and through 
those signs, could do, — that is, as Christ himself has told you what 
it is. Luke iv. 19. " To preach the acceptable year of the Lord,'' 
— that is, to indicate time, Siud to regulate and point out the begin- 
nings and ends of the months, and seasons of the year. 

These, then, are the only preachers of the gospel, the natural 
lights of the world, whose houses or celestial mansions are in that 
*' city set upon a hill," which " cannot be hid," where they are set 
*' for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years ;" and from 
the study of which we learn the " word of the Lord.'' 

They alone are the believers in Christ, who, " where he is, thtn-o 
are they also." 

They alone are the believers who " have everlasting life." Tlu'V 



3] 2 THE devil's pulpit. 

alone •' cast out devils," — that is. the Diabloloi, or signs which are 
adverse to them. They alone speak the same science in all the 
laniruafres of the earth. They alone " drink deadly poison," absorb 
the" putrid exhalations of the earth, and are unhurt. They alone, 
in annual succession, appear as " in Christ when Christ is in them." 
They alone are so essentially homogene with him, that the eflFects 
ascribed to him are equally ascribable to. them. 

•' The works which he doth do. they do also : and greater works 
than these do they do. because he goeth to his father.'' 

He proceeds from sign to sign, by an attraction which keeps 
him within the range of our Solar System. They are distinctive 
Suns to Systems of their own. Suns brighter than ours, producing 
more glorious objects of creation, and lighting up happier worlds 
through the gallery of immeasurable space. 

But I have another Philip for you, which will leave the astro- 
nomical identity of this believer in Christ beyond all ambiguity. 
Your last Scriptural Philip is found in Acts ix. 26, where the 
Angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, " Arise and go toward 
the South, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto 
Gaza, which is desert." 

Why, look ye, sirs ; these are the very relations of the Philip 
the Horse-man "^of the Zodiac. He ?.s literally '• going toward the 
South." He is going down from Jerusalem ; as almost the whole 
body of the constellation falls below the tropic of Capricornus, the 
Goat, his head alone being within the Zodiac ; and he goes into 
Gaza ; and 

Gaza is the Hebrew for a goat; and '-'Gaza,'' which is 
'• desert," is none other than a definition of the unfruitful and deso- 
late Decem Ber. 

And he preached to the eunuch, — an eunuch literally signifying 
a ''fine mght,''' — the fine and frosty nights of the beginning of winter 
being the most convenient for astronomical observations. 

"• An eunuch, under Candace. Queen of the Ethiopians,^' the most 
beautiful figure of language that could be conceived for a fine night, 
the Sliver moon, pale regent of the dark ones, being under, or set. 

And he preached, not of the triumphs of the Sun in Summer, 
but of his humiliation after his having descended below the Scales of 
September, and therefore having come into the neighborhood of 
Philip. " In his humiliation," he says, '' his judgment was taken 
away," — that is, when the Sun comes to the Equator, at the 
Autumnal foot of the Celestial Arch, he is in Libra, the house of 
judgment, and his effulgence, of course, renders the Stars which 
constitute the house of judgment invisible. And thus, 

'• In his humiliation his judgnit^nt is taken away." 



THE devil's pulpit. 313 

But mark ye still ! Philip, with his fine night, rides as they 
preach. 

Eternal God ! — an' if here isn't the coach they ride in, — 
Charles' Wain, the Great Northern Bear, on which, with your own 
eyes, and every night of your lives, you may see the whole heavens 
riding round in royal pomp, and proclaiming, in one and the self- 
same demonstration, the everlasting truth of science, and the utter 
falsehood of the gospel. 

But how far did the gentlefolks ride in continuation of their 
discourse upon the humiliation of Christ? 

Why, through the whole remaining winter season, they travel- 
led all through " Gaza, which is desert" — that is, the Goat, which 
is the constellation of the barren and frosty December, till they 
come into Aquarius, the constellation of January, which establishes 
the faith of the ''fair night,'' — that the sun is re-ascending. He 
cries out, *' See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptiz- 
ed ?"^- Baptized he is. 

" And when they were come nj) out of the water — that is, when 
the water is at the zenith, just at the moment when it passes the 
zenith, the horseman, Sagittarius, sinks below the horizon, at the 
point, South-west by West. 

The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch, 
the fine nights, saw him no more. " And he went on his way re- 
joicing," — his w^ay being upwards in the course of the Sun, towards 
the summer months. 

But Philip was found at Azoius — that is, in Hell, the place of 
them that go down to the pit, the unsaved. In the Pit of Destruction. 

And thus, in the theatre of the starry heavens, as well as upon 
the stage on earth, we find one man in his turn plays many parts : 
and we can truly say, that whatever they may talk of at the gospel 
shop, we have here " Good entertainment for man and horse." 

* And here, sirs ! Could you entertain a doubt if you were to try to 
do so : that -with your definitions established your controversy — Gaza, 
which is desert — Gaza being the Hebrew for a Goat; the (5oat being the 
sign which the Sun enters when the Earth is shut up in deepest winter, 
When indeed it is desert: and the name Samson, "iVriJwJ — Shemshen, 
literally signifying the Sun. That Samson carrying away the gates of 
Gaza, and bearing them on his shoulders up the Hill of Hebron, never 
meant any thing else than the Sun, dashing his mighty way out of hi.s 
wintry prison, and bearing the nature which he had borne in December, 
up the hill which he climbs in his annual course through the Zodiac. 
And that Christ rising from his Tomb is another version, but not so 
good a one of the same astronomical allegory. 

14 



314 THE devil's pulpit. 



1 



Our holy evangelist, Saint Philip, has been in turn both king 
and begi^ar, both friend and foe, both saint and sinner, both perse- 
cuted and persecutor. You may gaze at him as the huntsman ; you 
may stag him for the chase. 

He has been Pharoah, King of Egypt, the horse and his rider, 
thrown into the sea. 

He has been the Joseph of the Patriarchate, whom his brethren 
threw into the pit. 

And here you see him come out of the pit, at the very moment 
when he has sent Mrs. Potiphar, the scarlet lady, about her bnsi 
ness ; and, having reached the meredian, he is Lord of all Egypt, 
presiding over the corn. The star Spica Yirginis setting, at that 
moment, at the point due west by south, when the brightest Star in 
Sagittarius is Lord of the Ascendant. 

And you will remember that Joseph, among the twelve patri- 
archs, was not more famous for delivering divine prophesies, 
than Sagittarius, among the twelve signs is, for shooting with a 
long bow. 

But it is only by a laborious effort of painful stupidity, that we 
can fail of identifying Joseph of the Patriarchate, the Philip of the 
Apostolate, and the Sagittarius of the Zodiac, — when Philip is the 
only one of the apostles that had a daughter that was a virgin, that 
Joseph was the only one of the patriarchs that had a daughter that 
was a virgin once ; with this most singular characteristic, that she 
was a virgin that ran over the wall. Gen. xlix. 22* And here is 
Miss Philips, the virgin, tumbling over the wall, heels upwards, 
and her father running after her, as if endeavouring to keep her a 
virgin. But how he succeeds in that endeavour, you may guess 
when you shall observe, that the moment that he gets over the w^all, 
if you look o' th' other side, you will see that Miss Philips is 
brought to bed of Twins. 

Could imaojination conceive a more beautiful personification of 
the genius of B ethsaida, than that which immediately follows this 
of his run-away daughter : " The archers have sorely grieved him, 
and shot at* him, and hated him. But his bow abode m strength, 
and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the 
mighty God of Jacob." 

As see ye. Sirs ! All the bright and strongly-marked Stars of 
this constellation, are immediately in the bow, and in the arms and 
hands of the figure. 

What could be m n-e grai)hically precise? unless it be the fur- 
ther definition : 

* The Latin "ulgate has it " filias discurrerunt siipermurura." 



THE devil's pulpit. 3J5 

"The blessings of the everlasting hills shall be on the head of 
Joseph, and on the crown of him that was separated from his 
brethren." Gen. xlix. 26. 

It is when the everlasting hills which you see here, immediately 
over the fruitful Scales of September, are come to the meridian, 
that Sagittarius is seen rising south-east, by east. 

Sagittarius is the only one of the signs that literally is sepa- 
rated from his brethren, by falling so much below the tropic of 
Capricorn. 

Joseph is the only one of the Patriarchs that was ever spoken 
of as standing in any relation to a crown : and the Sagittary is 
the only one of the signs of the Zodiac in the very same predica- 
ment, standing, as you see, in immediate contact with the crown 
of the south. 

Thus, not more accurately drawn on the celestial globe, than 
in your divine revelation, vi. 2. *' Behold a white horse, and he 
that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and 
he went forth conquering and to conquer." So the Philip of the 
Zodiac rides down to Gaza, which is desert 

So the Philip of the gospel remonstrates : "Show us the Father, 
and it sufficeth us'' — that is, a mere sight of the Sun will do for 
November. And so the frosty Nimrod of the year reigns, as a 
king over conquered vegetation. 

Yet the dying Israel adds : From thence is the Shepherd, the 
Stone of Israel,'^ — words which defy all faculty of interpretation in 
any other sense. But clear as the day in this truly magnificent 
science, Peter is the Stone, to whom Christ commits the care of 
his sheep : and see ye, sirs ! It is the coming of Sagittarius to the 
meridian, that causes the Stone, the Shepherd of Israel, to rise 
E.N.E. in the horizon ; and Sagittarius setting S.W. and AV. 
brings Peter to the meridian. So that from the positions of the 
one, we find the other, and *'from thence is the Stone, the Shepherd 
of Israel." 

This is all we are forced to believe of Philip, because it is 
contained in that part of ecclesiastical fiction that is called sacred. 
There is but one further notice of Philip, in that part of ecclesias- 
tical fiction, which, not being forced down our throats, is not 
3acred. 

We are instructed by the bishops of the Church of England 
in the bishop's book, Nelson's Festivals, page 202, that I'hilip 
"in the latter end of his life"— that is, I dare say, when it was 
getting towards November with him, ''came to llierapolis" — that 
is, the sacred city again ; "and found that sacred city'' very much 
addicted to idolatry. 



316 THE devil's pulpit. 

Why yes, sirs, look ye here, if that sacred city isn't addicted 
to idolatry, worshipping lambs and rams, and bulls and goats, and 
lions, and crabs, and lobsters, and mackarel. But says, the bish- 
ops' book, the Hierapolites were in those days more particularly 
addicted to the worship of a serpent, or dragon, of "a prodigious 
bigness." Saint Philip, by his prayers, procured the death, or at 
least, the vanishing (those are the very words of our bishops) of 
this famous serpent." 

But here i§ Philip, and the prodigiously big serpent too : and 
Philip, as you see, levels his bow-arrow at the serpent's tail, and 
by coming to the zenith, literally causes the serpent, Hydra, which 
reaches nearly a third part of the length of the whole city, to 
vanish out of Hierapolis. 

And what did the Hierapolites do to Philip for attacking their 
God? 

There must have been some society for the suppression of vice 
in the city of Hierapolis, to put down the fellow that was riding 
the high horse against the established religion of the country. 

Why the bishops gravely tell us, that "the magistrates, being 
provoked by the success Christianity had among the people, put 
St. Philip into prison." 

Why, then, what but solemn thieves, and consecrated swindlers, 
were they who called in the power of the law to defend their 
religion, when it could not be defended with argument, and put 
the man into prison, for ridiculing their folly, and showing them 
what a system of idiotish ignorance and priestly imposture, this 
established religion was. 

So Philip suffered martyrdom in Hierapolis, where he was, as 
the bishops would havQ us to believe, "hanged up by the neck 
against a pillar." 

Now, ye know a man cannot be hanged against a pillar, — he 
can only be hanged upon a pillar, or near it, or by the side of it, 
or from some beam, or any thing else transverse, or forming an 
angle with the pillar. 

But see, now, how bishops invent gospel. Here actually is the 
pillar, the great solstitial colure, passing immediately before the 
nose of Saint Philip : and here is Saint Philip hanging by the 
neck in the Zodiac ; all the rest of his body being below the Zodiac, 
and immediately against this pillar. 

So then, gentlemen, I believe I have left nothing unexplained 
of this bit of ecclesiastical horsemanship. 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON SAINT PHILIP. 



Tl DEVIL'S PULPIT. 



'AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT l^:'-^ Allan Cunningham. 



SAINT MATTHEW: ^ 

A SERMON, 

PKEACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE PvEV. 
PvOBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUJTDA, BLACKFRIAPvS-ROAD, MAY 19, 1831. 

A man, named Mat ThewJ'' — Matthew ix. 2. 

Well, what of the man named Mat Thew ? Why so much of 
him, sirs, and no less than affects the merits of the most important 
question in which man is interested, as is the pivot on which turns 
the alternative of thine everlasting destiny ! 

If the profession of the Christian faith were not a system of 
the grossest hypocrisy, a fashionable villany, a licensed swindle, 
cheat, and trick, in the keeping of which each religious scoundrel 
thinks himself authorised in enforcing a seeming and appearance 
of consent from others which he could never sincerely yield him- 
self, would it be possible that we should see every Christian nose 
in an instant, as it were, tying itself into a knot of contempt and 
scorn at the annunciation of any kind of argument that could hang 
to the tale of a man named Matthew, and shove off all inquiry 
with its disdainful — 

What of the man named Mat Thew 7 What of him, sirs ! 
What of him? Is it come to it, then, that a Christian should 
thus betray to us his own consciousness of connivance with priestly 
imposture, and that foul hypocrisy of a false and wicked heart, 
that will, after lending its countenance to the distraining of the 
sum of £10,359,560 a year out of the means of a country that 
starves its own inhabitants to keep up the credit of a story that 
was told by a man named Matthew ; and, after frightening reason 
from her seat by threatening us with everlasting torment in the 



318 THE devil's pulpit. 



« 



red hod blazes of hell fire and brimstone, if we don't, believe the 
gospe^ according to the man named Matthew. 

And after we exclaim in anxious terror : We will — we will 
believe it — a thousand times believe it — 

Only tell us something about the man who wrote it— 

Who was tlie man named Matthew ? 

After having thus robbed us, thus terrified, or ar least thus 
insulted us — do they shirk us off at last with a 

What of the man named Matthew ? What consequence can 
it be to you to know who the man named Matthew was ? 

And so their doctrine, after all, is, go to church and chapel, 
you fools, — listen to the parson, and shut your eyes, and open your 
mouths, and see what God will send you. What matters it to 
you who the man Matthew was, or whether he was a man or a 
horse ? 

Never was the day, never, in all the tide of time, in which 
such mighty efforts were made to keep mankind in ignorance ; 
never were any clergy on earth. Pagan or Papistical, so opposed 
to the diffusion of knowledge, so desperately afraid of it, and 
so bitterly hostile to it, as the Protestant clergy, both of the 
established church, and the dissenters of the present day, in this 
metropolis. 

But ask of any one of them, in his public function, the solution 
of any difficulty, on w^hich your mind's peace may be at stake, in 
the most respectful manner that you possibly can, the whole con- 
gregation will rise in instant alarm to have you forcibly ejected, 
as if they looked on you as a mad dog broken in among them. 

Ask of any one of them in private to relieve your doubt, or 
satisfy your curiosity, you would instantly be disdained as an 
insolent and offensive intruder, or remanded to such satisfaction as 
you might derive from listening to their public officiation. 

But one institution exists in the whole country, where any 
respectful question, which any well-meaning man might wish to 
put, would instantly be answered, with critical and scientific truth, 
freed from all embargo , aud that one institution is in danger ot 
being shut up for want of means to pay its rent ; and the critical 
and scientific lecturer there, the only honest and faithful expounder 
of the mysteries of theology in the kingdom, is in danger of being 
shut up, for his honesty and his faithfulness, within the dreadful 
walls of Horsemonger-lane gaol. 

And so, sirs, will this tax-burthened and priest-ridden country; 
from age to age, continue to pay its millions upon millions 
a-year. 

So will the millions of our fellow men in Ireland coniinue. 



THE devil's pulpit. 3X9 

from year to year, in contented wretchedness, to whine to us like 
hogs that cannot help themselves, for potatoes ; to pines, starve, 
and die like dogs in ditches ; to keep up the pompous sanctity ot 
a set of reverend knaves in preaching to us their Matthew's gospel, 
not one of whom could ever tell us who the man Matthew was, or 
would give us any more satisfactory relief of our curiosity than 
such as amounted to a virtual "damn your impudence for wanting 
to know." And that's quite as much knowledge as was ever pro- 
moted by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 

But we'll know something about the man named Mat Thesv ; 
or, what will do as well, we'll know the reason why we know 
nothing about the man named Mat Thew. 

So let the slaves of priestcraft, the gudgeons, flatfish, and blind 
eels, that they catch in the gospel net, swim down the ditch of faith 
into the cesspool of insanity. But here we shall blaspheme and 
be rational. We must know something about the man named 
Matthew. We must know all about him. 

And for tliis reason, sirs (and it you cannot bear the reason 
you must go to the other shop), that we hold that when a man 
has got the credit of having written a gospel, which we are bound 
to take for gospel, under peril of eternal damnation, the man who 
would leave any stone unturned in the way of picking all possible 
acquaintance with him, would be a fool. 

Now the first place or passage in any writing, book, or part 
of any book, or record, profane or sacred, history or romance in 
which the name of the man named Matthew occurs, is in our text, 
this same ninth verse of the ninth chapter of what is called "Ihe 
Gospel according to St. Matthew." 

And here it occurs in the accusative case, Mat Oatov, governed 
by the verb etSev, he saw, and in conjunction with the noun under 
the same grammatical government, avdpojrrov, which is translated, 
a man, that word, so translated, attracting its participial adjectives, 
KadTjfjievov, sitting,— that is, a man sitting, and Xeyofievov^ 
named, or, more literally, called, — thus throwing up so much in- 
formation as a man sitting Mat Thew, with the further predication 
of what he was sitting on, or at — that is, his chair or ta])lt — 
£71^ TO reXcjVLov, which the best Latin versions render sedcntcm 
in Telonio, which in English should be ''sitting in a Tklonil'm ; 
and which, for all that can be shown to the contrary, mis;ht mean 
sitting in a wheelbarrow ; but which our English translators, taking 
an audacious liberty with the sacred text, instead of conhning 
themsi^lves to the business of translation merely, have presunu'd to 
interpret for us, which they had no right to do ; they have addi'd 



320 THE devil's pulpit. 

to tlie text the gloss of their own impudence, and rendered what 
should have been sitting in a tolomum, in the long periphrasis, 
sitting at the receipt of customs. 

The variation may seem but trifling to uncritical and uncurious 
baalams of the gospel that can swallow any thing, but to us, who 
would not handle the word of God deceitfully and I sincerely hold 
this to be the word of God, it makes no less difference than that 
of turning it into the word of the Devil. 

As the text stands in our English Testaments, " And as Jesus 
passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at 
the receipt of customs, and he saith unto him, ' follow me ;' and he 
arose and followed him." 

It's a downright falsehood. There is not a word in th'e origi- 
nal to signify that Matthew was in the receipt of anything, when 
he obeyed the command of Jesus, and arose and followed him ; and 
supposing Matthev,^ to have been a Jew, as they tell us that he 
was, it is an attempt to palm on us a greater miracle than the re- 
surrection of Christ himself ; for who ever heard of a Jew who 
would leave his business at the call of either God or man, when 
there was any thing to be received ! 

If a Jew had ever obeyed the call of Jesus, we may be sure it 
must have been because he was not at the receipt of custom, and 
because no better customer than Jesus was likely to call at his 
shop. 

Sooner might they persuade us that the moon was made of a 
green cheese, than that there was ever a disciple of Moshesh, who 
would leave an opportunity of fingering a sixpence, for a sackful 
of Christian Salvation. 

Besides, the derivative meaning given by Christian interpreters, 
to the name Matthew, signifies givex, or a Reward, which, if it 
signifies anything, should signify that the man named Matthew 
would do nothing but what he would take care to be rewarded for. 

And if the Telonium meant the place, as they tell us, in which 
Matthew sat as a custom-house officer, appointed under government 
to receive the customs and charges of freightage of the cockboats 
that sailed on the Galilean puddle, his leaving his masters' employ- 
ment,and betraying his trust, at the bidding of the first thief that 
bid him do so, only shows what an unprincipled scoundrel the man 
called Mat Thew must have been, and should make us rather wish 
that such a villain might be found to be no relation to the gentle- 
man who wrote the gospel according to Saint Matthew, than that 
we should guess them into one and the same person. 

And sure, sirs, there is no instance in any rational construction 
of language among men, in which any author of a treatise so anni- 



THE DEVILS PULPIT 321 

hilated his own memory of his owu person, and was so utterly 
beside himself, as to introduce his own name and character into hi? 
treatise, in such a way as this man named Matthew has done, if 
this Matthew was the same as the Matthew to whom the Gospel 
according to Saint Matthew was ascribed. 

With as much reason might they fix on any other name intro" 
duced in the course of the gospel, as the name of its author, as that 
of the man named Matthew ; as I might fix on the name of Belze- 
bub, which occurs in this gospel, and call it the Gospel according 
to Saint Belzebub, which " they upon the adverse faction" would 
find as much labour to disprove as ever they could impose on us to 
*prove that it* was no? the composition of their runaway custom- 
house officer. 

Neither is the term which our English renders a man, in the 
phrase, a man named Mat Tliew, avdpa, which would have been 
literally a man, and which is the term invariably used, when no- 
thing more than an ordinary and proper man is intended, but it is 
afj.dpG)TroVj which is the figurative and complimentary term for a 
man, literally signifying something whose face is upward, a looker up. 

Do I mean, then, to question whether a man named Mat Thew 
was really a man? I answer, yes ! that's exactly what I do mean 
to question : and for this reason, because there is nothing in evi- 
dence to show but that he might have been a horse. And none 
but a fool would ever go before his horse to market. 

To all-gulphing and never-chewing Christians, who, while they 
treat the holy scriptures with the utmost contempt and indifference 
themselves, call us blasphemers for showing them a higher respect 
than they know how to show, this might appear as mere badinage, 
and the starting a difficulty and doubt as to whether so simple a 
phrase as a man named Mat Thew really means " a man named 
Mat TTi^z^'," might look like chicaning rather than reasoning. But 
not so fast ! the grounds and reasons for that doubt arc the very 
strongest on which ever doubt was founded. 

For who could have a right to be absolutely sure that a Jimn 
means a man in the language of that mysterious book in which 
he is obliged to admit that the Son of Man does not mean the Son 
of a Man, Christ being always called vtog avOpcjirs, never 
vtog avdpog — that is, always the Son of Man in the figurative 
term for man, never the Son of Man in the literal one, as most cer- 
tainly in that sense he was never the Son of a Man. 

But not only was the Son of Man not the Son of Man, but the 
Son of Man was not a Man at all ; the holy scriptures most eni- 

14* 



322 THE detil's pulpit. 

phatically admonishing ns, that he was only •'• found in fashion as a 
man."' Philip ii. 8 ; that only being one of his fashions \Yhich very 
soon went out of fashion, as in Mat. xvi. 13. You will find that 
*' when he was come into the coast of Csesarea (that is to say, seize 
him here) Phiiippi. (of Philip, the lover of a horse) — it was a ques- 
tion, that flesh and blood could not settle, whether he was a man or 
horse. And so at Csesarea Phiiippi, no where q\sq, and at no other 
time, but when he was come to Casarea Ph^hppi. Why at Casa- 
rea PhUrppil Eternal God I we'll meet him at Phiiippi I There 
he proposes the avowed problem, '• Whom say they that I the Son 
of Man am ?"' And one guesses that the Son of Man is Elms — 
that is Hklios, the Sun itself ; another guesses that he is John the 
Baptist — that is the constellation of Aquarius, the Water Bearer ; 
another guesses that he is one of the planets ; at last another 
guesses that the Son of Man is the Son of God, and that's the solu- 
tion of the conundrum. 

It is evident, upon this solution, that the word man is synony- 
mous with God. The man named Mat Thew may therefore mean 
the God named Mat Thew. And this is the only proof that the 
clergy themselves could ever adduce, for calling the word of Mat 
Thew the word of God. For Matthew is not one word, as it is deceit- 
fully represented to be. but two : and two of entirely distinct signi- 
ficancy, — Mat being the individual name, and Thew the family 
name. 

So that whatever the Mat means, we may wipe our feet upon 
the mat. But the Thew betrays to us, that " Trie man named 
Mat Thew,'' most certainly was no man at all. Theuth being the 
name of the Chief or Supreme God of the Egyptian. 

From the Egyptian word Theuth, dropping the cacophony 
produced by a repetition of the 0, or th, at the end, which is para- 
gogic merely, as the word was variously spelt, the Greeks formed 
their name for the Supreme God 9 Theos, which is the basis of 
our English words theology, and theological. In the Doric dialect 
of the Greek, this Theos would be spelt and written Thaws, which 
is precisely the word added to the word Mat, in the Mat Thaios of 
the Greek Testament. 

In the JEoiic dialect of the Greek, which was the basis of the 
Latin tongue, Theos became Deus : as in our English coinage, 
Deus is the sum of all we have to say about the Deity. 

Plato, in his treatise, named Philibus, mentions Theuth, the 
Supreme God of Egypt. He was looked upon as a great benefac- 
tor, and the first cultivator of the vine, as is expressed in that pretty 
hexameter : 



THE devil's pulpit. 323 

UpTGjg Ood eSarj Spenavrjv era ^orpvv ayetpev. 

Tkoth first taught how to apply the pruning knife to the vine 
branch. 

He was supposed to have invented letters : if so, he certainly 
invented the two best inventions that ever were invented, that is to 
say, good learning, of which I have enough, and good drinking, of 
which I have not enough. ( Drinks) 

. Suidas calls him Theus ; and says that he was the same as 
Arez, which was the name of the God Mars, from whom our Eng- 
lish word for the rough and blustering month of March, and the 
Latin name Aries, the Ram. 

So that there's no knowing whether the man, named Mat 
Thew, may not turn out to be a beast at last. 

But it may be asked, how could a brute beast write a gospel ? 
That's soon answered : — 

A brute beast could quite as easily write a gospel as a rational 
man could believe one. 

And sure, sirs, 'tis monstrous that any man who believes that 
Baalam's ass could preach a sermon, should doubt that any ass in 
the world might write the text for it. Nothing is impossible to 
God. 

And that there really was something of the beast in the charac- 
ter of the man named Matthew, or something very beastly about 
him, I appeal to the highest authority in this metropolis, even as 
high as the top of Saint Paul's Cathedral, on the western pediment 
of which, you will see the man, named Matthew, in company with 
one of the savagest looking wild beasts of all that you ever saw in 
Fidcock's Menagerie. 

They say, Pares cum paribus facilime congregantur. Birds of* 
« feather flock together, and it may be so with beasts. 

But this is certain, however cruel you may take Mat Thew's 
lion to be, Matthew himself has a heart of stone. 

God Almighty, they say, says, "Thou shalt not make to thy- 
eelf any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in 
Heaven above, or in the Earth beneath, nor in the water under the 
Earth." [Like a School-boy.) 

But the contempt of the Christian clergy for any command- 
ment of God, is as huge as Saint Paul's Cathedral. 

So there stand the graven images, in as naked impudence as 
the Venuses, and Tam-o'-Shanters, and Souter Johnnies, on the 
Italians' head-boards, as they cry, " Combien pour cela, Mon- 
sieur? '' 

But is there no authority for this apparent idolatry? Yes, the 
authority of every cathedral or decorated church in Christendom, 



324 THE devil's pulpit, 

the authority of a thousand altar-pieces of God, Id immediate 
juxtaposition with this violated commandment. The authority ot 
all the ornamented title-pages of the Bible itself, every representa- 
tion you ever saw, or that ever existed, in which- the man, named 
Matthew, was represented, never failed to represent a lion, as a co- 
essential and inseparable part of that representation. 

The man named Matthew has something to do with the beast. 
But TVhether it was the man or the beast that wrote the gospel 
can only be guessed at on the strong presumption that it was the 
beast that wrote it, implied in its not being called the gospel ol 
Matthew, or hy Matthew, as it would have been, had the man 
named Mat Thew wrote it : but according to Mat Thew ; that 
word according being composed of the Latin word Cok, cordis, 
the heart — that is, agreeably or answering to the heart. 

Now if the gospel had been agreeably to the man's heart, and 
not answered exactly to the lion's heart, — the lion, as being the 
king of the beasts, like all other kings that beasts are subject to, 
would have torn the man to pieces. 

Nor would Mat Thew's gospel be of any authority whatever 
among rational men, if it were not supported by the authority of 
the royal beasts. And that's the reason why, if a man speak his 
mind too freely against the gospel according to Saint Mat Thew, 
the Devil-a-bit does Mat care about it. But the lion begins to 
roar, and the jackalls of the gospel, that are always the lion's pro- 
viders, will swear that you said it against the peace of their Sover- 
eign Lord the King, his Crow^n and Dignity : and you may reckon 
it as a bit of the Levil's own luck if you don't get cast into the 
lion's den. 

Never would mankind have believed in Matthew's gospel, it 
they had not been frightened out of their wits by Matthew's lion. 

But there are three other gospel-mongers, or evangelists, as 
well as the Anthrope Mat Thew, to w^hose loving kindness we are 
equally indebted. 

There is Saint Mark, with his little Devil, to remind us of the 
characteristic genius of his gospel, *' He that helieveth not shall be 
damnedJ^ 

There is Luke, with his mad bull, ready to gore us into salva- 
tion : and 

There is John, with his eagle, to pluck out the eyes of our 
reason. 

And each of these monsters, or holy evangelists, as you observe, 
has a royal nature in it — that is, something indescribably mis- 
chievous, savage, and destructive : the lion, being the king among 
wild beasts ; the bull, the king over tame animals ; the eagle, the 



THE DE Veil's pulpit. 325 

king" of things " in Heaven above ;" and the Devil, or Man-devil, 
the king of things " in the Earth beneath.'* 

Well, then, may we pray to these royal beasts, or beastly kings, 
and especially I, who, with the eye of faith, do see them, as it 
were, on the spring, to lock me in their infernal embraces. 

*♦ Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
Spare the bed which I lie on." 

The royal savages are all but ready to murder us in our sleep. 

Their myrmidons are breathing vengeance upon me, for only 
having made a joke or two against the Holy Scriptures. Because 
my jokes set my fellow- creatures a laughing : whereas, their jokes 
have never been laughing matters. And they are for coming the 
old joke, which they played oflP upon me, when they clapt me into 
Oakham Gaol, and then sent the chaplain of the prison to tell me 
to '' stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made me free.'* 

And then, having seen the action entered against me, and seen 
me entered for the endurance of the most cruel persecution their 
power can inflict, they'll come their other joke of entering their 
protest against all sorts of persecution, and assuring me that Chris- 
tianity allows of no persecution, while not a drop of water to cool 
the martyr's tongue, not a drop of oil on the tip of a feather to 
ease the cracking of the hinges, and the impetuous recoil and jar- 
ring sound of their iron bars upon his wounded ears, will the 
whole body of the clergy be able to afford him out of their tiny 
annuity of 10,359,560/. a year. 

Wlien I lay in Oakham Gaol, the Bishop of Norwich, the most 
liberal of the whole Bench of Bishops, sent me word, that he was 
sorry for me ; but that was all he sent. 

There was a joke for ye, sirs, or rather, joke for me ; that was 
a bishop's joke. 

And all, ye see, to keep in their ov/n hands the exclusive privi- 
lege of communicating what they call Christian knowledge, and 
teaching the meaning of the holy scriptures. 

And you are to give your preachers of the gospel credit for 
being able to teach you the meaning of the reading of the book, 
when you see that those preachers don't themselves know the 
meaning of the pictures. The best part of every book in the 
world is the pictures. Even a sensible child might put your folly 
to the blush, if he saw you so inveterate a fool as to fancy that 
you could understand the meaning of the book, when you did not 
understand the meaning of the pictures. The pictures, sirs, the 
pictures I 



326 THE DEVILS PULPIT. 

Not till the days of the interference of our Protestant and 
Dissenterian preachers in the publication and circulation of Bibles 
and Testaments, was an authorised edition of the four gospels ever 
put forth, without presenting an equally authorised representation 
of the four evangelists with the four royal beasts by which they 
are respectively distinguished, — the lion, for Matthew ; the angel, 
for Mark ; the bull, for Luke ; and the eagle, for John. But the 
Protestant priests, the most deceitful of all deceivers of the people 
beginning to fear that the people might acquire wit enough to ask 
for the meaning of those four royal beasts, have swindled away 
the old title-page, and substituted one with only two royal beasts 
in it. 

''The lion and the unicorn, a fighting for the crown.'' 

And God grant that they may fight for it, till they kill each 
other, and so not a single royal beast be left to worry our lives out 
for the sake of keeping up his crown and dignity. 

But now for what your Protestant priests never dared to trust 
you with, or never knew themselves, the meaning of all this. 

Kefuse to think that what I ojffer you is sooth and truth, as 
long as ye can refuse to think so. Withhold your assent as long 
as ye can withhold it. Only lend me your attention, and you shall 
lend me nothing else : I will not borrow your conviction, nor pay 
it ye back again. I will steal it, and keep it for ever. Thus, 
sirs. 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever or whatever they 
were, were divinely inspired. Yery well, I suppose they were so. 
And if they were, they must have had something in them not 
common to the nature of man. The divine light shone in them in 
a very peculiar manner. 

But if the divine light shone in them, the divine light must 
have been less light than the light of the kitchen grease in the 
paper lanthorn that illuminates the edge of a Billinsgate sprat- 
basket, if it hadn't shone in the wild-beasts as well as the wild 
evangelists. 

But if it was the understandings only of the evangelists that 
were illuminated, the Devil's in it if the four-footed beast has 
not twice the understanding of a two-legged beast to be illu- 
minated. 

And if it be urged that light is only of use to those who have 
eyes to see with : why, then, the more eyes any thing has, the 
more light it must want. Now, the four evangelists laboured 
under the misfortune of having but one single pair of eyes a-piece, 
and those little better than buried alive in their foreheads ; but 



THE devil's pulpit. 327 

the four beas5ts with wliora they are invariably attended, are des- 
cribed in the 4th of Ile\^lations, as being full of eyes, before and 
behind, so that they could see with their tails : and not only were 
they full of eyes before and behind, but it is added, they were full 
of eyes within." 

A most wonderful provision that aofainst their catching the 
cholera morbus : for the moment they felt they didn't know how, 
they had only to look at their own tripes to see what was the 
matter with them. 

That they are the very same beasts as those which ever accom- 
pany the four evangelists, is defined in the sacred text, with the 
accuracy of natural history. "The first beast," says the holy 
apostle, "was like a lion ; and the second beast like a calf; and the 
third beast had a face as a man ; and the fourth beast was like a 
flying eagle." — Rev. iv. 7. And these four beasts were not merely 
before the throne of God, or round about the throne of God ; but 
they were in the midst of the throne, where none could be but' 
God — that is, they were none other than God himself — that is, the 
All-seeing God, who having to see all things, must of course have 
employment enough for all his eyes ; and, indeed, for a few more, 
in order to let some of them get a wink of sleep, while the others 
are on duty. But as it is, the holy apostle says, '-they rest not 
day nor night.'' 

Come, then, bright science, from thy starry throne, and enable 
us to rescue the spell-bound reason of men from the accursed bond- 
age of those priestly thieves who preach a gospel to their choused 
hearers, which they never believe themselves, which not one of them 
dared trust himself to defend by argument before rational men, 
and which is only kept up in a mockery of respect by the terror 
of their prisons, the pomp of their priests, and the bayonets of 
their soldiers. 

Here, sirs, are Mat Thew, Mark, Luke, and John, answering 
to every one of the predications of the four evangelists, not ex- 
cepting one, or leaving a defect of demonstration for chicane to 
hang a doubt on. 

Here are the four royal stars, as they were through eternal 
ages of by-gone time, located in the visible heavens, to mark the 
place which the Sun nears or approaches, as he annually divides 
to us the four seasons of the year. 

Saints they were called, and Saints really they are, that name 
signifying, as its derivation betrays, Swis, as each of the fixed 
Stars is a Sun ; and which the circular halo of rays, with which 
the heads of their effigies were surrounded, expressly acknowl- 
edged ; evangelists they were, because their oJQQce was 'Ho preach 



328 THE devil's pulpit. 

the acceptable year of the Lord," and to mark the predicament 
of EVAN — that is, of Bacchus, the Sun, through the four seasons. 

Four they are, because there are but four seasons of the year, 
over which these four royal Stars preside. 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they are names never found 
in the language of any Jewish nation upon earth : but betraying 
in their derivation the most accurate description of the four royal 
Stars, 

Eegulus, which is Saint Matthew, or Cor Leonis, the heart of 
the lion, which the Sun enters about the 2d of July, and leaves 
about the 23d of August, when the earth begins to give her fruits ; 
and thence this Star gets the name of Saint Mat Thew, which is, 
most literally, the Sun, the gift, the God, the most expressive de- 
sigoation of the Sun's bounty, and of the heat at that season. 
And here is Matthew, not only with his lion, but in his lion, the 
very heart of the lion. And here is the beast in the throne ot 
God, and see if he is not full of eyes, before and behind. He has 
got an eye in his tail, Daneb, and the eye within him, which is his 
heart itself ; and these eyes never sleep, they rest not day nor 
night. 

Formalhaut, in the Fishes' mouth, Jonah in the whale's belly, 
swallowing the water which is efiuse(J from the urn of the Aqua- 
rius of January, is the Saint Mark. 

That word Marcus literally signifying the polite or shining one, 
the most beautiful definition you could invent for the shining For- 
malhaut, who is the only one of the four whose accompanying 
genius is a human being, Marcus being believed to have composed 
his gospel under the dictation of Saint Peter : and here, sirs, is 
Peter, pouring it forth, and Mark swallowing it, as fast as he can 
swallow ; and I need not tell you that there's a good deal for him 
to swallow. 

Aldebaran is the bull's eye, the unequivocal elymon, both of 
the name and symbol of St. Luke, with his bull. 

The word Luke, literally signifying the luminous, the very term 
than which you could find no other to express the magnificent red- 
looking Star, which you see a little above, and westward of Orion, 
and which you have never looked at the Stars in your lives, nor, I 
guess, at any thing else, if you have not seen, and which the Sun 
is directly upon, about the 28th of May. 

Antares, in the Scorpion, which the Sun is directly upon, on 
the 29th of November, is Saint John : that I, the One; Own, the 
Being ; es, the Fire : this being the brightest of them all, the 
disciple which Jesus loved, — que les Romains appellaient Pari- 
cilienne. 



THE devil's pulpit. 329 

Tlife colour, the apparent «?izes, the geometrical figures which 
these four stars of the first magnitude presented to the eyes of the 
first observers of nature, and would present to us still, had not our 
Christian priests, in a moral sense, put out the eyes of the people ; 
but, above all, their neighbourhood to the P]quinoctial and Solsti- 
cial points, caused them to be marked as fixed points from which 
to measure and determine the progressive march of the Sun, of the 
Moon, and the five other moveable Stars, or Planets ; and, conse- 
quently, of the time of the year, of the seasons, and in necessary 
association, of the progress of vegetation, of heat and cold, of 
winds and tempests, and thus entirely of all the phoenomena of 
nature, to be developed in the revolution of " the acceptable year 
of the Lord." 

These four royal Stars, therefore, could not have failed of 
attracting observance, in every age, in every country, where man 
had been capable of observance, whereever " seed time and harvest, 
summer and winter, day and night, had been observed." They 
could not have failed of being observed as the authors of divine 
knowledge to man. They could not have failed of being worship- 
ped by all the worshippers of the hosts of Heaven, as they are, at 
this day in the Church of Rome, with a worship only secondary to 
that of EVAN — that is, Christ, Bacchus himself. They could not 
have been honoured with any honour heterogene to that of the 
four holy evangelists. They could not have been named with 
names more expressive of their appearance and relations than 

Mat Thew, the giving God. 

Marc, the polished. 

Luke, the resplendent. 

John, the Fiery 

Regulus, the Little King. 

For-mal-haut, the Arabic for the Fishes* Mouth. 

Aldebaran, the Arabic for the Bull's Eye : and 

Antares, the Scorpion's Heart : 
Which are their names upon the celestial globe, are absolutely less 
expressive than the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 

Two of them — i e., the Stars Luke and John, are red : and the 
other two, Matthew and Mark, are white or pale-looking Stars. 

And they are placed in such opposition to each other, that 
when one of the red -ones is at the meridian, the other is its direct 
antipode in the middle of its course under the earth. So with the 
white ones. 

The two, Luke and John, are placed near the colurc of the 
Equinoxes, and were considered as the sentinels who kept guard, 
separating the long days from the long nights. 



330 THE devil's pulpit. 

Tlie two, Matthew and Mark — t. e. Eegulus and Formalhaut, 
guarded the limits of the Suns highest and lowest parallel of de- 
clination, Summer and Winter. 

As Matthew's is the longest, and Mark's the shortest gospel, 
Luke's and John's, like Spring and Autumn, are about of an 
equal length. 

Sai7its they are, that name literally signifying what the rays 
round their heads pictorially signify : they are Suns. 

Now, sirs, with our most certain historical knowledge, se(jond- 
ing these astronomical demonstrations. 1st. That the Bishops of 
the Egyptian Idol Serapis, in the time of the Emperor Adrian, 
were called Bishops of Christ. 2d. That the sign or sacred sym- 
bol of that idol was the sip;n of the Cress — tliat is, in the proces- 
sions or religious marches of these astronomical priests, there were 
carried certain sacred spells, or holy books, which detailed the his- 
tory of the Sun in his annual revolution, under the allegory of a 
crucified rnan, whose name was J:esus: and that the number of 
those books was/ottr .* and that the name of those books was none 
other than the equivalent of the four gospels: and that the author- 
ity to which they were ascribed, was none other than that of the 
four evangelssts. 

And that for making these magnificent discoveries to an insulted 
people, your Christian gospel preachers, unable to find a man 
among them that can answer me, like Moses in the Exodus, are 
looking this way and that way for their opportunity to " smite me 
in the back, and bury me in the sand," to huddle me off the stage 
of public observance into the dark cells of their Horsemonger-lane 
Gaol. 

I have but one argument with ye : if there dwells a noble 
nature in ye, let 'em not do it ! 



END OF THE DISCOURSE ON SAINT MATTHEW. 



THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 



"AND A BONNIE PULPIT IT IS:'— Allan Cunningham. 

THE REDEEMER: 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED BY HIS HIGHNESS'S CHAPLAIN, THE REV. 
ROBERT TAYLOR, B. A. 

AT THE ROTUNDA, BLACKFRIARS-ROAD, MAY 1, 1831. 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the Earth, And though after my Skin worms 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ; whom 1 
shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not an- 
other,'^ — Job xix. 25. 



" I KNOW that my Redeemer liveth,'^ saith the holy Job. And 
I know so too : nor does their breathe on earth a man who hath 
higher respect for the text of his sacred passage, or a firmer con- 
viction of the truth that it contains, than he, whom professing 
Christians designate as the DeviVs Chaplairi ; and whom the So- 
ciety for the Suppression of Vice have branded as a wicked and 
evil-disposed person. 

What, then, is the cause of the difference between us, if I 
respect the Scriptures as much as they do. This it is : they respect 
them, because they know nothing about them ; I respect them, 
because I know all about them : They, like the devils, believe and 
tremble at them : I, like a rational man, understand and laugh 
at them. 

What, then, is the difference, 'twixt their faith and mine ? 

Theirs bids them lift their dagger to my throat. Mine doth for- 
give the wrong, and bids them hear me. Only hear me, — e'en 
upon no other covenant than the challenge. Strike, but hear me! 
And if they would only hear me, the fault should all be mine it 



332 the' DEflL^S PC 

they struck at all. If they would only hear me, I have a magic 
that would unnerve the uplifted arm ; I could put a spell upon 
them, of power to tame the savage breast, to soften rocks and bend 
the gnarled oak. 

Of the thousands and tens of thousands who rail against me and 
persecute me, by forbidding all friends of theirs to become friends of 
mine — the most cruel mode of persecution — how many are there, 
who ever exchanged a single word with me ? 

I have no enemy on earth who hears me. All I complain of is, 
of being hated, because unknown ; and condemned, because 
unheard. Of the whole body of the Society for the Suppression of 
Vice, whose subscriptions supply the fund, which in the event of 
their success, is to buy away my property, my good name, my 
liberty, and all that is dear to a good man, how many are there, 
who have once so much as heard me, or read my writings, or could 
with honour say that of their own knowledge they knew me to be 
such a man as ought to be punished, — as ought not to be allowed 
to enjoy his life and liberty. Not one of them, sirs, — not one. 

And this, sirs, is what the Society for the Suppression of Yice 
— that is, the Bishops, Archdeacons, Reverend Rectors, and Yicars, 
Right Honourable Lords, and Honourable Baronets, who constitute 
the Society, called Justice. They club together out of their enor- 
mous wealth to supply the fund, with which to buy up the testimo- 
ny of the dirty thieves that will, for money, swear them any thing, 
and to pay the dirty counsel, that will, for money, plead them any 
thing, to crush a solitary unsupported individual, whose only 
means of subsistence is his intellectual labour, — whose only claim 
to distinction is his hard-earned learning, whose only riches is the 
good esteem which he hath earned in the judgments of all good 
, men. 

And like the wolf that only wanted to play with the kid, if he 
would but come down from the shed, and to tickle him under the 
throat a little bit, just no more than to make him squeak, and to 
show him how far they are from any thing like a vindictive spirit, 
and how entirely their gospel forbids any thing like persecutions 
for religious opinions : they will persuade the jury that they may 
be safely trusted with the power which an adverse verdict would 
give them, for God forbid^ and far be it from them, and all the 
rest on^t, that they should seek any further object than the mere 
suppression of an intolerable nuisance, and that the defendant be 
for mere form sake fined five shillings, reprimanded by the court, 
and discharged. 

They have no ill will against the defendant as an individual : 
they have no desire to suppress the free and uncontrolled discussion 



THE devil's pulpit. 333 

of any opinions whatever : they are as far from a spirit of bigotry 
and intolerance as the sun's disk from darkness. 

Till they choused and cheated jury, giving them credit for all 
these liberal professions, and thinking that the punishment of so 
trifling a sentence, even if it should not be exactly just to the defend- 
ant, less than the inconvenience of being shut up all night to them- 
selves, will heedlessly and idly pronounce the fatal verdict, that will 
bring the poor kid down from the sheltering shed, to the proof of 
the sincerity of their wolfish pretensions. 

Then, when they shall have got the verdict, then like the city 
sledge hammer, will they come dovi^n with vengeance, then will the 
wolves show their teeth, the aspect of things will be altered, then 
the mere Jive shillhig fine, which might have been all the punish- 
ment which the jury had meditated, will be turned into the forfeit- 
ure of 1,000/. as part of the sentence passed on him, upon his 
last conviction, 500/. of which must be taken out of the pockets of 
the best and dearest friends he ever had on earth, and so wound 
him through them. 

And what sort of a wound thai must be, I put it to the feelings 
of every man in this assembly, who ever had such friends, or was 
worthy to have them, to feel for him. 

Then, too, it will be remembered, that laws are of no avail if 
they are never to be put into execution : and the law expressly 
awards, that the punishment for blasphemy, upon a second convic- 
tion, shall be transportation for life. 

The Court, however, always tempering Justice with Mercy, and 
yielding to the earnest solicitations of the prosecutors themselves, 
to whom the defendant ought to feel himself infinitely indebted, will 
insist on no more than the payment of the fine of the thousand 
pounds incurred upon the previous conviction, and which they 
know that it is absolutely impossible that it should be paid. And 
to be further imprisoned, till — till e'en as long as they please. 

Go, Christian, go and smell the sweet and wholesome air, of 
which God hath given the free enjoyment to every thing that 
breathes, and then say, by God and by his everlasting truth and 
mercy, who are the vicked and evil-disposed persons, — the Society 
for the Suppression of Vice who seek to deprive him of that ])re- 
cious right, — or the man, of whom not a single member of tlmt 
society can show that he ever did a wrong to any man. 

But the clergy, the patrons of this Society, say of him, as their 
prototypes, the chief priests and pharisees of the gospel said of 
Christ, he hath spoken blasphemy, and in the most literal analogy 
to the type of the gospel, the chief priests, the clergy, and tlio 
church patrons of this Persecution Society, act from the buck 



334 THE devil's pulpit. 

ground ; they strike from behind a screen, not bringing the accusa- 
tion directly in their own persons, but hiring and suborning two 
false witnesses, to report something that he had said, which they 
did not understand, and did not wish to understand, and which, 
being reported, without any notice of what was said before or after, 
or in what relevancy, or to what end, might have the same appear- 
ance of strangeness and wildness, as if he had said, " Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I will build it up again.^* 

And his discourses, of which all men of science and learning 
who have ever heard them, have ever acknowledged to be most 
truly learned, and most demonstratively scientific, have been served 
up to his persecutors, in Lincoln's Inn, who will handle them with 
just as much criticism, and just as much ability and disposition to 
understand them, as might be expected for the diagrams of Euclid, 
when submitted to the criticism of that most genuine House of 
Lords, a pig-stye. 

I have been engaged in enucleating the bright gems of science, 
hid in the shell of religious allegory. 

The splendour of those illustrations begins to flash into the dark 
caverns of priestly wickedness : and the priests, purposely averting 
their eyes from the light, have set their dogs at me ; as well know- 
ing, that though the light cannot be refuted, it may be extinguish- 
ed ; though they cannot answer their opponent, they can destroy 
him. 

I return, as well as I can, to the business which the text more 
immediately propounds, in the illustration of which I hope to add 
another to the thousand proofs that the world possesses, that the 
prosecution against me is really none other than the war of barba- 
rous ignorance, and cruel fanaticism, against intelligence and virtue. 
Another effort (may it be the last !) of priestly villainy to prevent 
the diffusion of knowledge, and to perpetuate the reign of supersti- 
tion and madness among men. 

Independently of the sublime astronomical science, veiled under 
the allegory of a crucified Saviour, the allegory discovers, in innu- 
merable episodes and underplots, subordinate to the main design, an 
earnest effort on the part of the allegorists to attach a moral corol- 
lary to their gospel. 

But unfortunately, the moral of the story has ever been that 
part of it which Christians, in all ages, have been, of all men in the 
world, least disposed to attend to. 

So that it is hard to say whether the science of the gospel has 
been more above their understandings, or its moral, opposed to 
their conduct. 



THE devil's pulpit. 335 

No sooner was believing the gross sense of the dead and deadly 
letter of the text of the New Testament, substituted in the place 
of a critical and philosophical understanding of its spirit and inten- 
tion, than a fierce and furious zeal for the gospel was allowed to 
supersede all necessity of obedience to its moral inference. 

The moral detail, drawn out on the scientific ground-work of 
the natural phcenomena of " the acceptable year of the Lord,'' the 
allegorised history of the Sun, exhibited to the perceptions of the 
wise, the wrongs and sorrows, which the principle of reason would 
have to undergo, ere it would come to triumph, as ultimately it 
will, over barbarous ignorance and sanctified malignity. 

The principle of reason, the Logos, science, or truth itself per- 
sonified, is the Jesus of the fable : the representatives of barbarous 
ignorance are the Jewish rabblement, the religious church and 
chapel-going villains, egged on by their priests and preachers, and 
Methodist parsons, to cry out against him, they know not where- 
fore ; and to hate him, for they know not what. 

The chief priests and elders, and all the council, seeking for false 
witness against him (and very easily finding it, be sure on't), are 
the Society for the Suppression af Vice, with the clergy and digni- 
taries of the church at their head, not acting openly and above 
board, but in council, and secret cabal, employing their wealth to 
defray the expenses of the prosecution, and urging on the black- 
guard people of God to cry crucify him ! crucify him / and to the 
reasonable question, " Why, what evil hath he done ?" to cry out 
so much the more, Let him be crucified. So that when the deed 
shall have been done, each particular reverend and right reverend 
may still be able to lay claim to the praise of setting his face 
against all sorts of persecution, and to say, like the Scottish mur- 
derer to the ghost of Banquo : 

" Thou canst not say I did it^ 

It is obvious, then, to all impartial criticisms, that the gospels, 
though their details are various, and their particular incidents 
wholly irreconcileable with each other, are not in the least de- 
gree false or contradictory, because the detail and the incidents are 
no essentialities of it. 

The moral is wholly unafiectcd, however the circumstances of 
the allegory may be varied. 

The only line of truth to be observed, and which is not, and 
may not be compromised, is, that in whatever way, and by what- 
ever means, it is always ignorance and prejudice that seek the 



336 THE devil's pulpit. 

destruction of learning and virtue ; it is always the self-interested 
and the crafty who excite that prejudice, and endeavour to per- 
petuate that ignorance. 

From which the moral is, to the good and the wise, that they 
should learn to meet with fortitude, to bear with patience, and to 
forgive with boundless philanthropy, the persecutions and wrongs, 
from which perfection itself could not be exempted. 

The admonition to the less learned and less wise (0 that they 
would take it in good part I) is, how little they should trust them- 
selves to be ruled by priests, and how the man whom their priests 
have delivered over to their prejudice, might, if they had but done 
themselves the justice to inquire into his character, prove to be 
their best and greatest benefactor. This is really the moral of the 
gospel. But in the main design of sacred writ, the scope and 
interpretation is entirely a matter of science, and the moral only 
contingent, as a moral might attach to the game of chess, or to a 
problem in Euclid, in which the moral ideas of precision and 
accuracy, of method in conduct, of order, of justice, of truth, 
cannot be separated from our observance of the beauty we per- 
ceive, and the pleasure we derive, in the accuracy of the scientific 
demonstration. 

The text — -*'J know that my Redeemer liveth,'' &c., is of this 
entirely scientific character, and the moral corollary, no part of 
the proposition itself, is nothing more than an inference as to the 
pleasures of hope in any object, and the utilities which the prin- 
ciple of hope may subserve in strengthening a man's courage to 
contend with the difficulties of his immediate situation. 

The words of the text derive a peculiar solemnity from the 
circumstance of their being read in the office for the burial of the 
dead, and a peculiar familiarity to the minds of musical amateurs, 
from their forming the most magnificent anthem in the oratorio of 
the Messiah, — the sound being the only part of the business which 
Christians have ever attended to. 

But the meaning of it? God, none but an infidel would 
ever have dreamed of its having any meaning. The moment you 
begin to want to know the meaning of a thing, your Christian 
neighbours will put you down as, "a wicked and evil disposed per- 
son.'' When you seek to be wise above what is written, though 
what is written be the greatest nonsense that ever was written, 
they consider you as a dangerous man, an immoral character, one 
whose conversation is to be avoided, whose company is to be 
shunned. Men would grow wiser for it, you see ; and the conse- 
quence would l>e. that the empire of folly and fanaticism would be 
endangered, and clergymen would not be able to get a living. 






THE devil's pulpit 337 

So it's enough for them to know that somebody said — though 
the Devil may care who — that he " knew that his Redeemer was 
alive ; and that after he was dead, he would be alive himself." And 
then about his flesh and his skin, and the worm's meat, coming to 
life again (which it is devilishly like to do.) 

And then, when all the kin was off, raw-head and bloody-bones 
was to see God, in \i\^ flesh, — in \\\^ flesh, without any skin on it, a 
pretty pickle to see God in ! Nobody being able to tell us, whe- 
ther it was the man that was to see God in his own flesh, or 
whether God was going to run away with the man's flesh. 

But as for the skin, that seems to have been not worth a resur- 
rection, it was more holy than righteous, the worms might have 
that. 

Go, ask your clergy to show you some relevancy in all this 
jumble of absurdity, some method in this language of apparent 
madness ; some sense of it, in the understanding of which, a man 
may stand excused to his own reason, for pronouncing it to be rea- 
sonable. TJiey cannot do so. All that they can do, is to warn you 
not to go near the Rotunda, where you will find a man who can : and 
so they club together in their dark coteries, to accuse him of revil- 
ing Scripture, who never reviled any thing but their most gross and 
filthy misunderstandings of Scripture : and of blaspheming the word 
of God, who never blasphemed any thing but the corrupt glosses 
and false interpretations, which they have put on Scripture and 
which, because they dared not submit them to the trial of discus- 
sion, they seek to defend by the tyrannous arm of power. 

But see, now, ye who love truth, and hold learning and science 
to be more respectable than sanctified insanity, and slobbering 
Grace of Godship, what the text of sacred writ will become when 
shone on by the bright light of critical erudition. How infinitely 
superior in sense, how exalted in significancy, how sublime in sci- 
ence, how rich of instruction ! 

The passage is introduced by a most sublime summons on our 
'severest attention. 

Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my 
flesh r 

" that my words were now written ; that they were 'printed 
in a book." Printed in a 6oo^ is a devilishly awkward figure of 
speech for a man to have hit upon, three or four thousand years bo- 
fore printing was invented — " that they were graven in an iron 
pen, and lead in the rock forever.'^ It ends with the words — '* Yet 
in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself and mine 
eyes shall behold, and not another though wy reins be consumed 
within me^ 

15 



338 THE devil's pulpit. 

The very striking and infinitely important variations of the 
Greek and Latin from oar English translation, and probably of the 
Hebrew text, which is itself but a translation from the original 
Arabic, stand in demonstrative proof, that the effort of the English 
translators has been precisely that of our Protestant clergy, at this 
day — that is. not to discover the meaning of the text, but as much 
as possible to conceal it ; not to instruct the people, but to keep 
them in ignorance. 

The Latin Yul2fate has it, "I know that my Redeemer Uveth 
and in the last day I ■shall rise up out of the Earth. And a^ain 1 
shall be invested with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God :^' 
and for the words, " though my reins be consumed within me:'' the 
Latin has it, '•' Thhs hope is laid up in my bosom.'' — (Sinus.) The 
Greek of the Septuagint has it, '• For 1 know that he who shall liber- 
ate me is perpetually during in the Temple over the Earth. My 
skin ivhich pumps up these shall rise again. For these things are 
accomplished for me, before the Lord, which thing I [understand or) 
represent in my own person, which things my eye hath seen, and nut 
another. For all thinss are perfected to me, in my breast.''* 

A little bit of difference that, I believe, from any thing that 
appears in your vulgar tongue I The devil-a-word about the worm^s 
meat : and the rot in the man's loins, or of any such stuff, as could 
serve for a basis of the Bedlamite idea, that dead men's flesh, after 
having been eaten by worms, and undergone a million of decompo- 
sitions and recompositions, through millions of millions of years, 
should appear alive again. 

Who. then, was Job ? The learned Jewish Rabbis, who have 
plagiarised this work from the Chaldean and Arabian astronomers, 
admit that he was a mere personification, an imaginary being, that 
never had any existence but in poetry and fiction. 

Though a poor guess has been made, to identify him with Jo- 
bab, the fifth descendant from Abraham, from the similarity of the 
name Joab, to that of Jobab in the series, '' Abraham begat Isaac, 
Isaac begat Esau, Esau begat Ruel, Rael begat Cruel, and Cruel 
begat Jobab. 

But without the addition of a single letter to the name, without 
any variation at all, but our remembrance that the Greeks, who 
have no letter Y in their alphabet, but always represented that 

* Oida yap arc aevvaog eotlv 6 eKXveiv fie jueAAwv, em 
yry^, avacrrjoat to depf-ia [i8 to TavTa, Tzapa yap Kvptov 
ravTa fiot avveTe/.ead?]. A eyw efiavTO) ovveTiaTaiiai a o 
o<j)6a/Mog juy ecjpaKS, nat &fc a/./MO TzavTO deaot gvvtete- 
XeOTai ev koato. 



THE devil's pulpit. 839 

letter by a B, as they wrote PepyiXtog for Virgilius, and I^ejSrjpog 
for Severus. So they must have written and could have written 
in no other way than Job for Jove. And, says the learned Bry- 
ant, there is good reason to think that Jehovah, the name of the 
God of Israel, underwent a like change, and was converted to 
Ia)/3a, by the Africans pronounced Juba, which, in Latin, signifies 
the feathers in a cock's neck, which he holds up when he fights ; 
also the red flesh, like crests in a snake's neck, precisely such as 
were the form and shape of the Holy Ghost, when he sat in tonoues 
of fire upon the heads of the apostles, on the day of Pentecost ; 
and, as you see them here upon the heads of my two celestial 
fighting cocks, Castor and Pollux, the Twins of May, the Holy 
Ghost always being famous for making people devilish hot-headed, 
giving them the gift of the gab, and setting them a fighting. 

As certainly, then,. as six may be proved to be the same as half- 
a-dozen, is it proved that Job, and Jove, and Jehovah, are personi- 
fications of the one, and the selfsame great Themes of all allegory, 
the Sun and the Year. 

And the perfect and upright man of the East, with his Seven 
Sons, and three daughters, tempted by Satan, and foiling into great 
affliction, and then getting out of his affliction, and becoming as 
prosperous as ever, and finding his seven sons and three daughters 
alive again, and none the worse for having all being killed, at the 
beginning of the story, is a Chaldean gospel, precisely of the cha- 
racter of our Egyptian table of Jesus Christ, of which the gist was 
nothing more than the natural history of the year, which has the 
seven summer months, from March to September for its sons : the 
three extra-zodical feminine constellations for its three daughters, 
the Old Mother Virgin Mary, that tempts him to curse God and 
die, for his wife, and Bootes, Hercules, and Serpentarius, for 
his comforters, who descended with him into his state of affliction, 
when below the Equator : in which, as if almost by the pun itself, 
Old Bootes, or Boots, is Bildad, the Shootie ; Serpentarius, i3 
Zophar, the Naamathite , and Hercules is Eliphaz, the Temanite. 

While God is invariably the Gad of the tribes of Israel — that 
is, the Earn of the signs of the Zodiac. 

Hence, in strict observance of the astronomical analogies, God^ 
the Sun in the constellation of Aries the Earn, asks Job or Jove 
the year, in his state of dejection, after the Autumnal Equinox — 
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands 
of Orion ? Canst thou bring forth the ticelve siQ;ns in the season ? 
or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? Where the names of 
these constellations are precisely the same as they arc on our 



340 THE devil's pulpit, 

celestial globe, at this day, and the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion, 
though so manifestly none other than names of the fixed stars, are 
spoken of, as much as if they were real personages, and certainly 
they are quite as much so as Job and his three friends, or God and 
the Devil, who each sustain their respective parts in this beautiful 
astronomical drama. 

Hence, with that perfect astronomica> science, which had ascer- 
tained the motion of the precession of the Equinoxes, to the accu- 
racy of determining that motion to be 50" 9 *", and three-fourths 
of a third of a degree in a year, an accuracy which our Herschels, 
Haleys, and Sir Isaac Newtons have never been able to surpass 
or to dispute, the great astronomer, speaking in the dramatic char- 
acter of Jove, or Job, the allegorical genius of the year, has those 
remarkable words, in the 31st chapter, "i have made a Covenant 
with mine eyes, why then should I think upon a Maid ?" 

Than which, for any sense that your clergy could ever put upon 
it, more idiotish nonsense never echoed within the walls of a mad- 
house. 

For what should hinder a man from thinking of a maid ? Or 
what would the maids think of us, if we never thought of them ? 
Or why did Grod give a man eyes at all, if the bargain is to be, 
that there should be any harm in using them to look upon the 
loveliest thing that eyes did ever see. 

But look at the beautiful result of the astronomical enuclea- 
tion : the fruits of the earth are to be patiently waited for till the 
season of their maturity — that is, of the coming of the Sun in his 
path in the Ecliptic, to the line of the Equator. This covenant 
takes place, not in Virgo, the Virgin of August, but in Libra, the 
Balance of September. Hence the astronomical accuracy of the 
Apophthegm, " I have made a covenant with mine eyes,'^ — that is, 
I have observed the place of the Autumnal Equinox, by astronomi- 
cal observation, — I have ascertained that it takes place in the Ba- 
lance of September, — why, then, should I think of finding it in the 
Virgin of August. 

And now, sirs, bring our science to the text. And it is no 
longer obscure, that the declining year should say to the constella- 
tions, whose ascendancy marks the Autumnal period, ^^ Why should 
you persecute me^^ — that is, com.e after me, ^* as God " that is, as 
God persecutes, or drives along the whole glorious company of the 
apostles, " and are not satisfied with my flesh " — that is, with hav 
ing enjoyed the animal food, which the year supplies in Spring 
" but are thirsting for my hlood " — that is, the rich juice of the 
grape, which the year gives in Autumn. 

Then, have we in most accurate analogy, the clear and beauti- 



THE DEV^L'S PULPIT. 341 

ful language of the year, after having shed his blood in Autumn, 
consoling himself with the assurance that the Sun, which every 
year redeems, or brings the year round again, still liveth: and " in 
myflesk,^' says he — that is, the flesh, the mutton and beef of March 
and April, which comes immediately in succession after the fish of 
February, " shall I see God." 

Thus, according to the Latin text, "/ know that my Redeemer 
liveth, and at the last day 1 shall rise up out of the Earth, and 
again I shall be invested with my s/cin,'' the last day, or the latter 
day, is the last day of the old, and the first day of the new year 
when the year was reckoned to begin from the commencement of 
the Spring Quarter. 

And then it is, that the Sun appears in the mutton of March. 
Jesus has redeemed his lost sheep, Jason has brought back the 
Golden Fleece, and Job is re-invested with his skin. 

And thus, sirs, without believing in anything supernatural, 
which no man in the use of his reason could possibly do : with 
perfect sincerity of heart, and with a far higher respect for the 
sacred text, than was ever shown to it by Christians, for we have 
shown it the respect of taking pains to understand it : say I, and 
not an intelligent infidel upon earth will hesitate to say with me, 
*'J know that my Redeemer liveth, and at the latter day,^^ of each 
concluding winter, through eternal ages, ^' he shall stand upon the 
Earth. And though, after my skin," ray Starry Golden Fleece of 
that celestial sheep : " he passeth on till worms destroy this,'^ — 
that is, till the Scorpions of October seem to have extinguished his 
vital heat : yet, again and again, no sooner shall he have passed 
through mj fish of February, than in my flesh of March, " shall I 
see Gad," whom I shall see for my Sol, and mine eyes shall behold, 
and not another." 

The face of nature is varied, year will continue to follow year, 
through eternal ages ; but the Sun, and the Sun alone, is eternally 
the same. 



END OP THE DISCOURSE ON THE REDEEMER. 



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